fi 


BY   HENRY   VAN   DYKE 


The  Valley  of  Vision 
Fighting  for  Peace 
The  Unknown  Quantity 
The  Ruling  Passion 
The  Blue  Flower 


Camp-Fires  and  Guide-Posts 
Out-of-Doors  in  the  Holy  Land 
Days  Off 
Little  Rivers 
Fisherman's  Luck 

Poems,  Collection  in  one  volume 


Golden  Stars 

The  Red  Flower 

The  Grand  Canyon,  and  Other  Poems 

The  White  Bees,  and  Other  Poems 

The  Builders,  and  Other  Poems 

Music,  and  Other  Poems 

The  Toiling  of  Felix,  and  Other  Poems 

The  House  of  Rimmon 


Studies  in  Tennyson 
Poems  of  Tennyson 

CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 


CAMP-FIRES 
AND   GUIDE-POSTS 


From  a  photograph  by  Mathilde  Well. 

The  bird-bath  iti  the  garden. 


CAMP-FIRES 
AND  GUIDE-POSTS 


A  BOOK  OF 
ESSAYS  AND    EXCURSIONS 


BY 

HENRY  VAN  DYKE 


"  When  Paradise  was  lost  I  thought  everything  was  tnde 
But  it  was  only  begun." 

— SOLOMON  SINGLEWITZ:  The  Life  of  Adam. 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 
1921 


Copyright,  1920,  19$1,  by  Charles  Scribner's  Sons 
Published  April, 


9s  L 


THE   SCRIBNER    PRESS 


TO 

MY    DAUGHTER   AND    CHUM 

PAULA   VAN   DYKE   CHAPIN 

OTHERWISE    CALLED 

LITTLE    FUJI-SAN 


PREFACE 

SOME  of  the  chapters  in  this  book  were  written 
as  a  series  of  monthly  papers  in  Scribner's  Maga 
zine  in  the  years  1920-21.  I  have  ventured  to  add 
a  few  things, — interludes,  you  may  call  them, — 
which  may  be  taken  as  talks  by  the  camp-fire.  At 
the  end  I  have  included  four  little  chapters  of  re 
membrance, — memories  posita, — tributes  to  four  be 
loved  fellow-travellers. 

HENRY  VAN  DYKE. 

AVALON,  February  22,  1921. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I.  Camp-Fires  and  Guide-Posts  3 

II.  A  Certain  Insularity  of  Islanders  19 

III.  A  Basket  of  Chips  37 

IV.  Self,  Neighbor,  and  Company  41 
V.  Sympathetic  Antipathies  59 

VI.  Publicomania  77 

VII.  Moving  Day  83 

VIII.  Firelight  Views  100 

IX.  Fishing  in  Strange  Waters  120 

X.  The  Pathless  Profession  142 

XI.  A  Mid-Pacific  Pageant  152 

XII.  Japonica  174 

XIII.  Interludes  on  the  Koto  198 

XIV.  Suicidal  Tendencies  in  Democracy  203 
XV.  A  Bundle  of  Letters  228 

XVI.  Christmas  Greens  233 

XVII.  On  Saying  Good-Eye  251 

ix 


CONTENTS 

FELLOW-TRAVELLERS. 


PAGE 


XVIII.  An  Old-Style  American  271 

XIX.  Interpreter's  House  290 

XX.  The  Healing  Gift  300 

XXI.  A  Traveller  from  Altruria  310 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

The  bird-bath  in  the  garden  Frontispiece 

Facing  page 

The  round  stone  tower  20 

Is  not  moving  day  marked  in  all  our  calen 
dars?  96 

In  andirons  I  would  admit  a  little  fancy  106 

The    ancient,     apostolic,    consolatory    art    of 
angling  140 

A  house  with  broad  lanai  -and  long  pergola  160 

The    temple-garden    where    the    iris    blooms 

around  the  pond  188 

Camp-fires  beneath  the  trees 


1AMP-FIRES     AND     GUIDE- 
POSTS 


CAMP-FIRES    AND    GUIDE-POSTS 

THE  title  of  these  rambling  essays  is  taken  from 
two  things  that  are  pleasant  and  useful  on  the 
common  ways  of  life. 

Let  me  confess  at  the  outset  that  by  camp-fires 
and  guide-posts  I  intend  more  than  the  literal  mean 
ing  of  the  words.  I  use  them  for  their  significance. 

The  camp-fire  is  the  conservative  symbol.  It 
invites  to  rest  and  fellowship  and  friendly  council, 
not  unmixed  with  that  good  cheer  which  is  suggested 
when  we  call  a  conference  of  wits  a  "symposium." 
There  is  no  denying  the  fact  that  man's  best  dis 
course  has  always  been  at  a  common  meal,  whether 
spread  on  the  green  grass  or  on  a  mahogany  table. 
Of  the  elders  of  Israel  in  the  Exodus,  it  is  recorded 
that  "they  saw  God  and  did  eat  and  drink."  This 
is  a  gentle  hint  that  however  soulful  a  man's  soul 
may  be,  in  his  present  mixed  estate  the  body  had 
its  claims,  which  it  is  both  lawful  and  necessary 
to  satisfy,  in  order  that  the  spiritual  part  may  not 
be  hampered  and  disordered.  Hunger,  thirst,  and 


CAMP-FIRES 

in^igestion^are  unfavorable  alike  to  clear  thought 
and  calm  devotion. 

The  guide-post  is  the  progressive  sign.  It  calls 
us  to  continue  our  journey,  and  gives  information 
in  regard  to  direction  and  distance,  which  (if  cor- 
rect)  has  considerable  value  to  the  traveller. 

Every  social  theory,  every  moral  maxim,  every 
appeal  of  preacher  or  political  orator,  every  bit  of 
propaganda  printed  or  spoken,  yes,  even  every 
advertisement  in  the  newspapers  or  on  the  bill 
boards,  whether  false  or  true,  is  of  the  nature  of  a 
guide-post. 

Every  place  where  men  rest  and  repose  with 
warmth  to  cheer  them — the  hollow  in  the  woods 
where  pilgrims  or  tramps  gather  about  the  blazing 
sticks,  the  snug  cottage  where  the  kettle  simmers 
on  the  hearth,  the  royal  castle  where  an  ancient 
coat-of-arms  is  carved  on  the  mantelpiece,  the  vast 
palatial  hotel  where  sovereign  democracy  flaunts 
its  new-found  wealth  and  commercial  travellers 
bask  in  the  heat  of  concealed  steam-radiators — 
every  one  of  these  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  a 
camp-fire. 

No  human  progress  is  unbroken  and  continuous. 
No  human  resting-place  is  permanent.  Where  are 

4 

. 


AND    GUIDE-POSTS 

Pharaoh's  Palace,  and  Solomon's  Temple,  and  the 
House  of  Caesar,  and  Cioero-V-TuseuUim,  and 
Horace's  Sabine  farm? 

I  remember  what  General  William  Tecumseh 
Sherman  —  fine  old  campaigner  —  said  to  me  when 
he  first  came  to  New  York  to  live  in  his  own  house. 
""  I've  made  a  new  camp.  Plenty  of  wood  and  water. 
Come 


We  might  get  more  comfort  out  of  this  sane  and 
wholesome  philosophy  of  life,  if  it  were  not  for  the 
violent  extremists  of  the  Right  and  the  Left,  who 
revile  and  buffet  us  alternately  when  we  try  to  push 
ahead  and  when  we  stop  to  think.  I  have  good 
friends  on  both  sides,  but  at  times  they  treat  me 
vilely  as  an  enemy. 

The  trouble  with  the  Radicals  is  that  they  are 
always  urging  us  to  travel  somewhither,  anywhither, 
ignoring  the  past,  condemning  the  present,  and 
hurling  ourselves  blindfold  into  the  future. 

The  trouble  with  the  Conservatives  is  that  they 
are  always  lulling  us  to  stay  where  we  are,  to  be 
content  with  our  present  comforts,  and  to  look 
with  optimistic  eyes  on  the  bright  side  of  our  neigh 
bors*  discomforts. 

Neither  pessimism  nor  optimism  pleases  me.  I 
5 


CAMP-FIRES 

am  a  meliorist, — to  use  the  word  which  Doctor  John 
Brown  of  Edinburgh  coined  in  1858. 

Therefore  I  refuse  to  engage  in  the  metaphysical 
triangular  conflict  between  the  past,  the  present, 
and  the  future.  It  means  nothing  to  me.  Yester 
day  is  a  memory.  To-morrow  is  a  hope.  To-day 
is  the  fact.  But  tell  me,  would  the  fact  be  what 
it  is  without  the  memory  and  the  hope?  Are  not 
all  three  equally  real? 

I  grant  you  there  is  a  distinction  between  the 
actual  and  the  imaginary.  But  it  is  not  a  difference 
in  essence.  It  is  only  a  difference  in  origin  and 
form.  What  we  call  the  actual  has  its  origin  in  a 
fact  outside  of  us.  What  we  call  the  imaginary 
has  its  origin  in  a  fact  within  us. 

A  burned  finger  and  a  burning  indignation  are 
equally  real. 

Memory  is  simply  imagination  looking  back: 
hope,  looking  forward. 

The  imaginary  is  not  non-existent.  It  exists  in 
the  mind — the  very  same  place  where  every  per 
ception  through  the  senses  has  its  present  and  only 
being. 

When  I  was  a  boy  I  cut  my  hand  with  my  first 
pocket-knife.  But  the  physical  scar  of  that  actual 

6 


AND    GUIDE-POSTS 

accident,  now  almost  invisible,  is  less  vivid  than 
the  memory  of  the  failure  of  my  ambition  to  be 
come  a  great  orator.  In  that  collegiate  contest, 
fifty  years  ago,  the  well-prepared  phrase  fled  from 
my  paralyzed  brain, 

"voxfaucibus  haesit" 

and  I  sat  down  feeling  that  life  was  ended.  But 
it  was  not. 

You  remember,  as  of  yesterday,  those  pleasant 
afternoon  walks  on  Fifth  Avenue  from  Madison 
Square  to  Central  Park,  in  the  last  quarter  of  the 
Nineteenth  Century,  when  the  air  was  clean  and 
bright,  the  sky-line  low,  and  on  every  block  you 
had  greetings  from  good  friends.  To-day,  if  duty 
compels,  you  plunge  through  that  same  mile-and- 
a-half ,  shut  in  by  man-made  cliffs  of  varying  degrees 
of  ugliness,  stifled  by  fumes  of  gasolene  from  the 
conglomerate  motor-cars,  and  worming  your  way 
through  malodorous  or  highly  perfumed  throngs  of 
"Parthians,  Medes,  and  Elamites,  dwellers  in  Meso 
potamia  and  Judaea,  Cappadocia,  Pontus,  and 
Asia,  Phrygia,  Pamphylia,  Egypt,  and  strangers  of 
Rome,  Jews  and  proselytes,  Cretes  and  Ara 
bians."  Few  indeed  are  the  native  Americans  you 

7 


CAMP-FIRES 

meet,  struggling  like  yourself  among  the  conflicting 
tides, — 

"ran  nantes  in  gurgite  vasto" 

Yet,  even  on  such  a  walk,  if  you  think  serenely, 
you  have  a  hope  of  something  better  in  the  long 
to-morrow:  a  modern  city  in  which  the  curse  of 
crowding  shall  be  mitigated  by  wiser  dispositions 
of  traffic,  transportation,  and  housing:  a  city  in 
which  there  shall  be  room  for  homes  and  play 
grounds,  as  well  as  for  temples  and  court-houses: 
a  city  in  which  the  rights  of  property  shall  be  safe 
guarded  chiefly  as  essential  to  the  supreme  right 
of  life. 

The  memory,  the  fact,  the  hope,  are  equally  real. 
But  tell  me,  brother,  can  we  really  make  sure  of 
our  guide-posts  unless  we  take  counsel  together 
beside  our  camp-fires? 

The  secret  of  perpetual  motion  has  not  yet  been 
discovered.  Human  nature  demands  intervals  of 
rest  and  relaxation  as  the  unexempt  condition  of 
our  mortal  frailty. 

Here  is  where  I  find  my  stance  for  a  drive.  Go 
forward  we  must,  unless  we  are  willing  to  slip  back 
ward.  But  we  cannot  know  that  we  are  going  for- 

Q 


AND    GUIDE-POSTS 

ward,  without  stopping  to  talk  over  our  common 
concerns  beside  the  camp-fire. 

Good  humor  is  one  of  the  prerequisites  of  sound 
judgment. 

I  have  seen  needful  work  done  by  men  in  excite 
ment  and  an  ill  temper,  but  never  truth  discovered 
nor  creative  things  accomplished.  My  old  gar 
dener  used  to  swear  horribly  when  he  was  rooting 
out  poison-ivy.  But  when  he  was  studying  how 
to  make  flowers  or  vegetables  grow  better,  he  was 
in  a  friendly  mood — whistling  or  singing. 

Emerson  has  a  good  word  on  this.  "Nothing 
will  supply  the  want  of  sunshine  to  peaches,  and 
to  make  knowledge  valuable,  you  must  have  the 
cheerfulness  of  wisdom.  Whenever  you  are  sincerely 
pleased  you  are  nourished.  The  joy  of  the  spirit 
indicates  its  strength.  All  healthy  things  are  sweet- 
tempered.  Genius  works  in  sport,  and  goodness 
smiles  to  the  last;  and,  for  the  reason,  that  who 
ever  sees  the  law  which  distributes  things  does  not 
despond,  but  is  animated  by  great  desires  and  en 
deavors.  He  who  desponds  betrays  that  he  has  not 
seen  it." 

But  what  about  the  man  who  frets  and  fumes 
and  froths  at  the  mouth  when  he  propounds  his 

9 


CAMP-FIRES 

favorite  dogma  ?  What  about  the  guide-post  enthu 
siasts  who  pronounce  double  damnation  on  us  if 
we  do  not  rush  forward  at  once  on  their  favorite 
roads  to  Utopia?  What  about  the  camp-fire  seden- 
taries  who  declare  that  unless  we  "stand  pat'*  pre 
cisely  where  we  are,  we  are  doomed  to  perdition  ? 

Methinks,  gentlemen,  you  do  protest  too  much. 
The  violence  of  your  protest  indicates  a  certain 
insecurity  of  the  ground  whereon  you  stand.  You 
would  base  your  programme  upon  ignorance  of 
what  men  learned  in  Athens,  Sparta,  Carthage, 
Sicily,  and  Rome,  long  ago.  That  will  not  go  !  We 
fall  back  upon  one  of  those  vital  phrases  with  which 
slang  has  enriched  our  language — "show  me  I" 

Nor  are  we  willing,  if  we  can  prevent  it,  to  have 
tried  upon  our  tender  bodies  and  souls  the  old  ex 
periments  which  were  tried  so  long  ago  and  which 
resulted  in  lamentable  failure. 

Why  suffer  twice  to  learn  the  same  lesson? 

Communism,  agrarianism,  proletarianism,  anarch 
ism,  have  all  had  their  day,  and  it  was  a  bad  day, — 
in  Athens  and  Sparta  and  Rome  and  Jerusalem 
and  Paris.  Why  give  them  another  day? 

The  divine  right  of  kings  and  capitalists  to  im 
pose  their  will  upon  their  fellow  men  has  been  tested 

10 


AND    GUIDE-POSTS 

many  times  and  has  always  failed  to  make  good 
before  the  throne  of  Eternal  Wisdom  and  Righteous 
ness.  The  bloody  bankruptcy  of  the  French  reign 
of  terror  was  no  worse,  and  no  better,  than  the 
breakdown  of  the  attempt  of  the  Holy  Alliance 
to  re-establish  the  tyranny  of  hereditary  titles  and 
unjust  prerogatives. 

Why  ask  us  to  return  to  these  old  discredited 
theories?  They  are  not  really  guide-posts.  They 
are  signs  of  "no  thoroughfare."  Give  us  something 
really  new,  gentlemen.  Think  out  some  better  way 
of  co-operation  between  the  "haves"  and  the  "have- 
nots."  Devise  some  better  mode  of  inducing  the 
lazy  to  work,  and  of  restraining  the  clever  and  in 
dustrious  from  claiming  exorbitant  gains.  That 
is  what  we  need,  as  surely  as  two  and  two  make 
four. 

If  you  can  do  this,  I  promise  you  that  a  con 
siderable  company  of  the  intellectual  middle  class, 
neither  "high-brows"  who  think  they  know  it  all, 
nor  "low-brows"  who  maintain  that  nothing  is 
worth  knowing,  will  be  ready  for  a  promising  ad 
venture.  Meantime  we  follow  the  old  guide-posts 
which  have  been  proved,  and  take  our  needful  ease 
by  the  camp-fires  where  we  find  creature  comforts 

11 


CAMP-FIRES 

and  friendly  talk.    And  if  our  camp  is  attacked  by 
brigands,  we  shall  be  ready  for  them. 

I  was  rereading  the  other  day  one  of  the  dia 
logues  of  Plato,  called  Thecetetus,  and  came  upon 
a  passage  which  seemed  to  depict  the  position  of 
thoughtful  people  in  our  own  time.  Plato  is  speak 
ing  of  a  philosopher  endeavoring  to  instruct  and 
guide  a  practical  man  of  the  world.  "But,  O  my 
friend,"  says  he,  "when  he  draws  the  other  into 
the  upper  air,  and  gets  him  out  of  his  pleas  and 
rejoinders  into  the  contemplation  of  justice  and 
injustice  in  their  own  nature,  or  from  the  common 
places  about  the  happiness  of  kings  to  the  considera 
tion  of  government,  and  of  human  happiness  and 
misery  in  general — what  they  are  and  how  a  man 
should  seek  after  the  one  and  avoid  the  other — 
when  that  narrow,  keen,  little  legal  mind  of  his  is 
called  to  account  about  all  this,  he  gives  the  phi 
losopher  his  revenge.  For  being  dizzied  by  the 
height  at  which  he  is  hanging,  he  being  dismayed 
and  lost  and  stammering  out  broken  words,  is 
laughed  at  not  only  by  Thracian  handmaidens  or 
any  other  uneducated  persons,  for  they  have  no 
eye  for  the  situation,  but  by  every  man  who  has 
not  been  brought  up  a  slave.  Such  are  the  two 


AND    GUIDE-POSTS 

characters,  Theodoras;  the  one  of  the  philosopher 
or  gentleman,  who  may  be  excused  for  appearing 
futile  and  inefficient  when  he  has  to  perform  some 
servile  office,  such  as  packing  a  bag,  or  flavoring 
a  sauce,  or  making  a  flattering  speech;  the  other, 
of  the  man  of  affairs  who  is  able  to  do  every  service 
smartly  and  neatly,  but  knows  not  how  to  wear 
his  cloak  like  a  gentleman;  still  less  does  he  acquire 
the  music  of  speech  or  hymn,  in  the  true  life  which 
is  lived  by  immortals  or  men  blessed  by  heaven." 

This  is  a  fair  description,  two  thousand  years 
old,  of  the  difference  between  the  "high-brow" 
and  the  "low-brow."  But  from  this  Plato  goes 
on  to  tell  us  something  more  important.  "Evils," 
says  he,  "can  never  perish;  for  there  must  always 
remain  something  which  is  antagonistic  to  good. 
.  .  .  But,  O  my  friend,  you  cannot  easily  convince 
mankind  that  they  should  avoid  vice  or  pursue 
virtue  for  the  reason  which  the  majority  give,  in 
order,  forsooth,  to  appear  respectable; — this  is 
what  people  are  always  repeating,  and  this,  in  my 
judgment,  is  an  old  wives*  tale.  Let  us  get  back 
to  the  truth  !  In  God  is  no  unrighteousness  at  all — 
He  is  altogether  righteous;  and  there  is  nothing 
more  like  Him  than  the  man  among  us  who  is  the 

13 


CAMP-FIRES 

most  righteous.  And  the  true  wisdom  of  men,  and 
their  nothingness  and  cowardice,  are  closely  bound 
up  with  this.  For  to  know  this  is  true  wisdom  and 
manhood,  and  to  ignore  this  is  folly  and  vice.  All 
other  kinds  of  so-called  wisdom,  such  as  the  wis 
dom  of  politicians  or  the  wisdom  of  the  arts,  are 
coarse  and  vulgar.  The  unrighteous  man,  or  the 
sayer  and  doer  of  unholy  things,  had  far  better 
not  cherish  the  illusion  that  his  roguery  is  clever 
ness.  Let  us  tell  him  frankly  that  he  does  not  realize 
what  kind  of  creature  he  is.  He  does  not  know  the 
penalty  of  unrighteousness:  not  stripes  and  death, 
as  he  supposes,  which  evil-doers  often  elude,  but 
a  final  punishment  from  which  there  is  no  escape." 

You  would  not  take  so  long  and  stern  a  sermon 
from  a  modern  preacher.  But  will  you  not  consider 
it  from  the  broad-shouldered,  wide-browed  Plato, 
who  lived  four  hundred  years  before  Christ?  Will 
you  not  read  it  as  a  comment  upon  those  modern 
knaves  who  twist  the  guide-posts  around  and  swear 
that  good  is  evil  and  vice  is  virtuous;  those  long 
haired,  lantern-jawed  mockers  who  protest  that 
property  is  theft  and  that  highway  robbery  is  the 
triumph  of  justice  ? 

I  do  not  mean  to  be  drawn  into  a  discussion  of 
14 


AND    GUIDE-POSTS 

the  bold  brutalities  of  the  Bolsheviki  in  Russia,  or 
the  sneaking  villainies  of  the  I.  W.  W.  in  America. 
These  lie  outside  of  the  region  of  literature.  They 
are  to  be  met  not  with  essays  and  orations,  but 
with  laws  and  guns.  The  decencies  of  life,  the  securi 
ties  of  home,  the  safeguards  of  social  order,  having 
been  won,  by  toil  and  fighting,  from  the  abyss  of 
barbarism,  will  not  be  suffered  to  perish.  Neither 
the  fury  of  the  antisocial  maniacs,  nor  the  senti- 
mentalism  of  the  social  imbeciles  will  be  permitted 
to  destroy  them.  We  look  to  statesmen  and  war 
riors  to  take  care  of  this. 

But  what  I  am  thinking  of  is  the  normal  life 
of  humanity — a  journey  with  frequent,  necessary 
halts — as  Matthew  Arnold  describes  it  in  Rugby 
Chapel : 

"See !    In  the  rocks  of  the  world 
Marches  the  host  of  mankind, 
A  feeble,  wavering  line. 
Where  are  they  tending  ?    A  god 
MarshalFd  them,  gave  them  their  goal. 
Ah,  but  the  way  is  so  long ! 
Years  they  have  been  in  the  wild: 
Sore  thirst  plagues  them,  the  rocks 
Rising  all  round  overawe; 
Factions  divide  them,  their  host 
15 


CAMP-FIRES 

Threatens  to  break,  to  dissolve. 
— Ah,  keep,  keep  them  combined ! 
Else,  of  the  myriads  who  fill 
That  army,  not  one  shall  arrive; 
Sole  shall  they  stray;  in  the  rocks 
Stagger  forever  in  vain, 
Die  one  by  one  in  the  waste." 

Yes,  we  must  hold  together,  and  go  forward  to 
gether,  and  take  our  wayside  rest  together.  That 
is  what  I  mean  to  write  about  in  these  essays.  The 
enjoyment  of  the  camp-fires.  The  scrutiny  of  the 
guide-posts. 

But  you  must  not  suspect  me  of  having  an  ul 
terior  design  of  springing  a  new  theory  of  the  uni 
verse  upon  you,  nor  of  subtly  advertising  a  panacea 
for  all 

"  The  heartache,  and  the  thousand  natural  shocks 
That  flesh  is  heir  to." 

No,  gentle  reader,  I  am  as  much  in  the  dark  as  you 
are,  and  with  you  I  suffer 

"The  slings  and  arrows  of  outrageous  fortune." 

'Tis  a  rough,  confused,  turbulent  age  in  which  we 
have  to  live.    But  it  is  the  only  age  that  is  given 

16 


AND    GUIDE-POSTS 

to  us.  Let  us  make  the  best  of  it.  And  above  all 
let  us  not  lose  either  our  loyalty  to  truth  or  our 
sense  of  humor. 

For  my  own  part  I  confess  my  prepossession  in 
favor  of  the  small  but  useful  virtues — like  fair  play, 
and  punctuality,  and  common  courtesy. 

If  I  write  of  these  things,  more  than  of  the  ulti 
mate  ethical  theories  which  engage  our  modern 
philosophists,  you  will  understand  and  forgive  me. 
I  do  not  profess  to  have  solved  the  riddle  of  exist 
ence.  Let  us  try  out  our  guesses  together  by  the 
camp-fire. 

And  you,  my  young  brother,  don't  think  that 
because  I  am  old,  I  am  necessarily  aged,  and  against 
you.  You  are  my  friend,  my  hope,  my  reliance. 

I  am  not  quite  so  sure  of  anything — not  even  of 
my  doubts,  denials,  and  prejudices — as  I  was  in 
my  youth.  But  I  have  had  some  experience  of 
what  agrees  with  body  and  soul,  as  Keats  says  in 
his  ode  to  the  bards  of  passion  and  mirth, 

"What  doth  strengthen  and  what  maim." 

By  that  knowledge  I  try  to  steer  my  course  toward 
peace  and  a  certain  degree  of  usefulness. 

The  minor  morals  of  life  attract  me.    I  like  real 
17 


CAMP-FIRES 

and  decent  folk  of  all  creeds  and  parties.    But  1 
have  no  confidence  in  catchwords,   either   of  au 
tocracy  or  democracy,  nor  in  universal  suffrage  as 
the  cure-all  of  man's  infirmity. 
Christ  was  crucified  by  a  referendum. 


18 


II 

A    CERTAIN    INSULARITY    OP 
ISLANDERS 

IS  curious  quality  of  human  nature  first  at 
tracted  my  notice  some  forty  years  ago,  when  I 
ent  to  work  in  Newport,  an  ancient  little  city 
(from  the  American  point  of  view)  situate  on  the 
sland  of  Rhode  Island,  in  the  State  of  Rhode  Isl- 
md. 

There,  in  the  centre  of  Touro  Park,  stands  the 
round  stone  tower  which  the  romanticists  revere  as 
relic  of  the  discovery  of  America  by  the  Norsemen 
centuries  before  Columbus  sailed,  and  which  the 
factualists  regard  as  the  remains  of  a  windmill  built 
in  the  seventeenth  century  to  grind  Indian  corn. 
But  you  are  mistaken  if  you  suppose  that  a  mere 
hseological  dispute  like  this  made  any  difference 
in  the  insular  feeling  of  the  native  Newporters. 

Was  the  tower  built  by  Leif  the  Viking  when  he 
found  his  colony  of  Vinland?     That  only  showed 
how  well  the  old  Norse  adventurer  "knew  his  way 
bout,"  when  he  picked  out  the  island  of  Rhode 
19 


CAMP-FIRES 

Island  as  the  most  beautiful  and  salubrious  spot  in 
a  whole  new  world, — an  island  abundant  in  the  wild 
fox-grapes  with  which  Nature  fills  her  loving-cup 
for  man,  and  blessed  with  a  douce  climate  in  which 
the  Gulf  Stream  tempers  alike  the  rigors  of  winter 
and  the  ardors  of  summer  to  an  enjoyable  though 
relaxing  suavity. 

Was  the  tower  erected  by  a  prudent  and  prosper 
ous  English  colonist  to  triturate  his  maize  in  the 
days  of  Roger  Williams?  That  only  illustrated  the 
well-known  fact  that  the  corn-meal  of  Rhode  Isl 
and, — white,  minutely  granular,  and  highly  nutri 
tious, — was,  and  still  is,  the  finest  on  earth,  and  posi 
tively  the  only  cereal  fit  for  the  making  of  the  suc 
culent  Johnny-cake,  unexcelled  among  the  foods  of 
mankind. 

I  found  the  insularity  of  these  islanders  absolutely 
correct  about  the  superiority  of  their  corn-meal; 
also  about  the  supremacy  of  the  Rhode  Island  tur 
key  as  a  "pi&ce  de  resistance"  in  a  banquet. 

But  I  found  much  more  than  this.  Rhode  Island 
was  not,  as  I  in  my  Knickerbocker  ignorance  had 
supposed,  a  fraction  of  New  England,  supine  be 
tween  Massachusetts  and  Connecticut.  It  was  an 
independent  and  sovereign,  though  diminutive, 

20 


A    CERTAIN    INSULARITY 

State.  It  had  its  own  traditions  and  its  own  ideals, 
inherited  from  the  Founder,  Roger  Williams,  that 
best  of  Puritans, — who  held  that  the  freedom  of  his 
own  conscience  implied  an  equal  liberty  for  others. 

The  magic  names  of  Massachusetts, — Adams, 
Endicott,  Quincy,  Cabot,  Lodge,  Hallowell,  Han 
cock,  and  so  on, — carried  no  spell  with  them  in 
Rhode  Island.  There  Arnold,  Greene,  Coggeshall, 
Coddington,  Clarke,  Easton,  Vernon,  Buffum,  Ham- 
mett,  Sheffield,  and  so  on, — forgive  me  if  I  forget  a 
few, — were  the  names  of  insular  renown.  Their  in 
heritors,  no  matter  whether  they  were  now  engaged 
in  commerce,  carpentry,  or  agriculture,  or  living 
quietly  on  diminished  estates  in  gambrel-roofed 
houses,  belonged  to  the  first  families. 

The  old  retired  sea-captains, — portly,  ruddy  men, 
who  had  a  trace  of  profanity  in  their  speech  even 
when  they  argued  for  the  orthodox  religion, — formed 
a  class  of  their  own.  Like  Ulysses  they  could  say: 

"Much  have  I  seen  and  known:  cities  of  men, 
And  manners,  climates,  councils,  governments." 

But  unlike  that  insatiable  old  wanderer,  they  pre 
ferred  the  climate  of  their  own  sea-girt  isle  to  any 
other  in  the  world.  Its  ways  and  manners,  councils 

21 


CAMP-FIRES 

and  traditions,  contented  them  to  the  core.  They 
had  sailed  abroad,  come  home  to  the  best,  and  set 
tled  down.  They  were  conserved  conservatives. 

This  was  the  atmosphere  and  spirit  of  the  old 
Newport,  with  its  narrow  streets,  gambrel  roofs, 
house-doors  opening  directly  upon  the  sidewalk, 
square  chimneys,  and  small-paned  windows.  The 
new  Newport,  which  was  at  that  time  just  begin 
ning  to  expand  its  million-dollar  "cottages"  along 
the  Cliffs,  and  to  display  its  expensive  and  much- 
divorced  social  luxuriance  along  the  misnamed 
Bellevue  Avenue,  made  little  impression  on  the  real 
islanders.  They  regarded  it  mainly  as  a  "passing 
show,"  and  incidentally  as  an  opportunity  of  in 
creased  gains  from  real  estate  and  retail  trade. 

I  recall  an  observation  made  by  my  father  when 
he  was  walking  with  me  and  one  of  my  Newport 
deacons  on  the  Avenue.  Gilded  youths  passed  us  in 
gorgeous  equipages,  and  were  pointed  out  and  iden 
tified.  That  was  so-and-so,  or  such-a-one,  who  had 
married  this-or-the-other  millionaire's  daughter. 
"Well,"  said  my  governor,  smiling  under  his  brown 
beard,  "I  think  this  part  of  Newport  ought  to  be 
called  'Son-in-Law  City.' "  The  remark  passed 
into  a  proverb  in  the  old  town 

22 


A    CERTAIN    INSULARITY 

They  were  pleasant  people  to  live  and  work  with, 
those  native  Newporters  and  the  folks  who  had  set 
tled  in  with  them.  Their  self-content,  not  being 
bumptious,  sweetened  their  ways  and  made  them 
easy-going.  Many  friends  I  found  among  them:  a 
gentle,  lame  bookseller,  who  knew  both  men  and 
books;  a  schoolmaster  whose  latinity  was  as  admi 
rable  as  his  natural  wit;  a  cabinet-maker  whose  hand- 
wrought  furniture  was  without  a  flaw;  a  shoemaker 
whose  soles  were  as  honest  as  his  soul;  a  retired  gen 
tleman  whose  chief  luxuries  were  good  literature, 
good  music,  and  good  talk;  and  most  of  all,  my  pred 
ecessor  in  the  pastorate,  the  old  Domine,  learned 
and  humorous,  a  famous  story-teller,  whose  favor 
ite  doctrine  was  that  the  first  of  the  virtues  is  hu 
mility, — of  which  he  had  plenty  and  was  very  proud. 

In  fact  the  insularity  of  the  place,  as  I  grew  to 
comprehend  it,  gave  me  sincere  pleasure.  The  only 
point  on  which  it  irked  me  was  that  these  island- 
people  seemed  to  know  little  and  care  less  about  the 
distinguished  position  in  American  history  of  my 
own  particular  island, — Long  Island,  with  its  fa 
mous  metropolis  of  Brooklyn,  then  a  large  New 
England  village,  which  has  since  been  absorbed  into 
the  cosmopolis  of  New  York.  This  indifference  to 

23 


CAMP-FIRES 

the  claims  of  Brooklyn  chafed  me  a  bit;  but  I  ac 
cepted  it  with  the  generous  superiority  of  youth.  So 
I  had  four  happy  years  in  Newport. 

The  next  time  I  had  occasion  to  consider  the  true 
meaning  of  insularity  was  when  I  began  to  make  ac 
quaintance  with  the  island  of  Great  Britain,  includ 
ing  its  local  divisions  of  England,  Scotland,  and 
Wales.  Here  is  a  wonderful  bit  of  "land  surrounded 
by  water,"  situate  off  the  western  coast  of  Europe, 
which  has  a  more  distinct  individuality  and  has  ex 
ercised  a  more  powerful  influence  on  the  history  of 
the  modern  world  than  any  country  of  the  conti 
nent. 

Now  what  do  you  find  in  contact  with  the  Briton, 
social,  intellectual,  political,  as  the  basis  of  his 
thought  and  feeling?  The  conviction  that  his  isl 
and  is  central  and  superior,  and  that  his  own  way 
of  looking  at  things  and  of  doing  things  is  the  right 
way. 

"Every  Englishman,"  wrote  Novalis  in  a  spirit 
of  German  mockery,  "is  an  island."  Yes,  beloved 
philosopher;  but  at  least  he  is  separate  from  the 
mainland  of  Prussia;  and  he  regards  the  surrounding 
sea  not  merely  as  his  protection,  but  also  as  his 
means  of  communication  with  the  rest  of  the  world. 
24 


A    CERTAIN    INSULARITY 

He  is  the  most  widely  travelled  of  provincials.    But 
he  never  forgets  where  he  came  from. 

The  Englishman  is  that  member  of  the  human 
family  who  regards  his  personal  habits  as  sacred 
rites.  His  morning  tub  accompanies  him  into 
Thibet.  His  afternoon  tea  is  a  function  in  India. 
His  pale  ale  is  placarded  on  the  Pyramids. 

The  thing  that  an  American  notices  on  first  meet 
ing  an  Englishman,  at  home  or  abroad,  is  his  high 
coast-line.  If  you  pass  that  chalk  cliff,  you  discover 
the  richness,  fertility,  hospitality  of  the  island.  No 
where  do  you  feel  more  a  foreigner  (except  for  the 
language)  than  on  your  first  arrival  in  England;  and 
nowhere  more  at  home,  when  you  have  lived  through 
the  early  shocks  into  a  friendly  intimacy. 

The  notable  social  quality  of  England  is  the  dis 
tinction  between  classes  and  the  simplicity  within 
them.  George  Washington  would  have  understood 
this  better  than  we  do.  But  even  now  it  is  disap 
pearing  a  little  as  the  House  of  Lords  is  periodically 
enlarged  from  the  ranks  of  brewers  and  makers  of 
newspapers  and  of  soap.  All  honors  to  them !  But 
they  are  still  expected  to  conform  in  manners,  to 
say  nothing  of  religion,  if  they  wish  to  find  their 
places  in  the  blessed  British  insularity. 

25 


CAMP-FIRES 

Often  in  England  have  I  met  with  frankness, 
bluff  ness,  even  brusqueness;  but  only  twice  with 
rudeness.  Once  it  was  from  a  duchess  of  plebeian 
birth;  which  was  not  astonishing.  The  other  time 
it  was  from  a  shrivelled  curator  in  a  university  li 
brary;  which  gave  me  a  shiver  of  surprise. 

But  since  then,  what  courtesy  and  hospitality 
have  I  found  in  English  and  Scotch  houses,  and  in 
the  most  ancient  of  British  universities,  gray  home  of 
the  golden  dream !  What  friendly  and  fruitful  talk 
in  mellow  voices,  cheered  by  sound  wine  before  an 
open  fire!  What  intimate  understanding  of  the 
best  meaning  of  culture !  What  sincere  disregard  of 
the  pratings  of  publicity !  What  good  fellowship, 
based  on  the  ideals  of  fine  literature  and  fair  morals, 
shown  in  Chaucer,  Shakespeare,  Milton,  and  their 
followers ! 

The  only  difficulty  I  had  was  to  persuade  some  of 
those  modern  Englishmen  that  the  supposed  Amer 
icanism,  "I  guess,"  was  a  direct  inheritance  from 
Spenser  and  Shakespeare;  and  that  our  pronuncia 
tion  of  "been"  to  rhyme  with  "bin,"  and  our  habit 
of  saying  "different  from"  instead  of  "different  to" 
had  good  old  English  authority  behind  them.  My 
friends  were  delightfully  insular,  but  they  did  not 

26 


A    CERTAIN    INSULARITY 

go  far  enough  back  in  the  history  of  their  insula. 
Finally  I  gave  up  the  effort  to  enlighten  them  and 
settled  down  comfortably  with  my  "Americanisms." 

I  had  many  opportunities  to  observe  the  course 
of  the  American  Rhodes  Scholars  in  Oxford.  It  ap 
peared  to  divide  itself  into  three  periods.  First, 
irritation,  when  they  rebelled  against  English  cus 
toms.  Second,  imitation,  when  they  vainly  en 
deavored  to  acquire  an  Oxford  accent  and  manner. 
Third  (but  this  only  for  the  finest  of  them),  assimi 
lation,  when  they  took  in  the  best  of  English  culture 
and  sweetened  their  inborn,  inbred  Americanism 
with  it. 

Emerson  wrote  in  1856:  "I  am  afraid  that  Eng 
lish  nature  is  so  rank  and  aggressive  as  to  be  a  lit 
tle  incompatible  with  any  other.  The  world  is  not 
wide  enough  for  two." 

Hawthorne,  a  little  later,  wrote:  "An  American 
is  not  apt  to  love  the  English  people  as  a  whole,  on 
whatever  length  of  acquaintance.  I  fancy  that 
they  would  value  our  regard,  and  even  reciprocate 
it  in  their  ungracious  way,  if  we  could  give  it  to 
them  in  spite  of  all  rebuffs;  but  they  are  beset  by  a 
curious  and  inevitable  infelicity,  which  compels 
them,  as  it  were,  to  keep  up  what  they  consider  a 

27 


CAMP-FIRES 

wholesome  bitterness  of  feeling  between  themselves 
and  all  other  nationalities,  especially  that  of  Amer 
ica." 

These  were  comments  marked  by  asperity  more 
than  by  urbanity.  But  it  must  be  remembered  that 
they  were  made  about  the  period  of  our  Civil  War, 
which  was  not  precisely  the  golden  age  of  Anglo- 
American  relations.  I  think  the  earlier  remarks  of 
Irving  and  the  later  observations  of  Lowell  were 
more  to  the  point. 

The  English  took  unfavorable  criticisms  from 
this  side  of  the  water  ill,  yet  with  far  less  perturba 
tion  and  indignation  than  we  Americans  showed  at 
the  caustic  caricatures  of  Mrs.  Trollope  and  Charles 
Dickens.  We  knew  that  some  of  our  people  were 
rude  and  crude;  but  why  remind  us  of  it  so  rudely 
and  crudely?  We  were  furiously  angry  and  we  let 
the  world  know  it.  The  English  may  have  been 
equally  vexed,  but  they  made  less  fuss  about  it, 
perhaps  because  of  their  more  perfect  insularity. 

The  man  whose  good  opinion  of  himself  is  solid 
can  afford  to  be  imperturbable.  It  is  when  vanity 
is  insecure  that  it  grows  touchy. 

Is  not  English  the  only  great  language  in  which 
the  pronoun  of  the  first  person  singular  is  capital- 

28 


A    CERTAIN    INSULARITY 

ized?  How  monumentally  imposing  is  that  upper 
case  "  I "  !  If  a  writer  is  egoistic  the  capitals  stretch 
across  his  page  like  a  colonnade.  When  he  writes 
"we,"  he  descends  to  the  lower  case. 

But  this  orthographic  solipsism,  mark  you,  is 
shared  by  Americans,  Canadians,  Australians,  New 
Zealanders, — all  who  use  the  English  tongue.  It  is 
therefore  not  to  be  set  down  to  insularity,  but  to  in 
dividualism, — a  stark,  ineradicable,  valuable  qual 
ity  of  these  various  folks  whose  thoughts  and  feel 
ings  have  been  nourished  by  the  same  language. 

It  comes  to  its  philosophic  climax  in  the  Yankee 
Emerson  who  held  the  infinity  and  sufficiency  of  the 
private  man,  and  declared,  "I  wish  to  say  what  I 
think  and  feel  to-day,  with  the  proviso  that  perhaps 
to-morrow  I  shall  contradict  it  all."  No  Briton,  not 
even  Carlyle,  could  beat  that. 

It  is  all  very  well  to  have  confidence  in  yourself, 
but  when  it  passes  into  contempt  for  the  rest  of 
mankind  it  becomes  a  different  matter.  Plato  said: 
"Self-will  is  a  companion  of  solitude." 

There  are  some  men  who  consider  comment  on 
the  faults  of  others  equivalent  to  an  exhibition  of 
their  own  virtues.  Self-complacency  of  that  kind  is 
seldom  shared  by  the  neighbors. 

29 


CAMP-FIRES 

Once  in  a  while  a  Briton,  otherwise  of  good  dis 
position  and  temperament,  falls  into  that  extrava 
gance  of  insularity.  Sidney  Smith  gave  an  illus 
tration  of  it  when  he  wrote  in  1820,  "Who  reads  an 
American  book?  or  goes  to  an  American  play?  or 
looks  at  an  American  picture  or  statue?" 

Well,  at  that  very  time,  a  noted  English  poet, 
Thomas  Campbell,  had  read  the  poems  of  Philip 
Freneau  of  New  Jersey  closely  enough  to  steal  a  fine 
verse  from  one  of  them, — 

"The  hunter  and  the  deer,  a  shade,"— 

and  embody  it  in  his  own  poem  O'Connor's  Child. 
At  that  very  time  Lamb  was  praising  the  Journal 
of  the  American  Quaker,  John  Woolman;  and  Walter 
Scott  was  admiring  Washington  Irving's  Sketch 
Book.  At  that  very  time  an  American  painter, 
Benjamin  West  of  Philadelphia,  was,  and  had  been 
for  twenty-seven  years,  president  of  the  Royal 
Academy  in  London.  Nay,  it  is  reported  that  Sid 
ney  Smith  himself  jocosely  threatened  to  disinherit 
his  daughter  if  she  did  not  like  the  writings  of  Ben 
jamin  Franklin.  So  you  see  his  supercilious  com 
ment  in  the  Renew  was  of  the  nature  of  an  aberra 
tion. 

30 


A    CERTAIN    INSULARITY 

Something  of  the  same  nature  I  noted  in  Matthew 
Arnold,  the  apostle  of  sweetness  and  light,  when  he 
visited  this  country  some  thirty  odd  years  ago.  A 
genial  Scotch-American  in  Brooklyn,  a  bon-vivant  of 
the  old  school,  made  a  feast  for  him,  at  which  there 
was  excellent  company  and  delicate  fare,  including, 
of  course,  canvasback  ducks,  done  to  a  turn, — just 
twenty  minutes, — and  a  small  bottle  with  each  bird. 
The  distinguished  guest  looked  at  his  plate,  seemed 
at  a  loss,  and  then  leaning  across  the  table  said  to 
an  American  bishop  in  a  tone  rather  more  audible 
than  he  used  in  his  lectures :  "  Bishop,  how  is  it  that 
you  nevah  know  how  to  cook  birds  in  your  country  ?  " 
The  bishop  blushed,  and  confessed  that  he  could 
not  quite  explain  it. 

It  was  what  the  French  call  "une  gaffe"  of  course: 
but  it  was  not  ill-natured,  and  therefore  not  really 
rude.  Who  would  not  pardon  a  little  thing  like  that 
to  the  man  who  had  written  Essays  in  Criticism, 
and  Sohrab  and  Rustem,  and  Rugby  Chapel,  and  all 
the  rest  of  Arnold's  fine  and  noble  works  ? 

The  truth  is,  there  is  a  mental  and  moral  kinship 
between  Great  Britain  and  America  which  makes 
little  differences  in  manners  and  occasional  infelic 
ities  seem  of  small  account.  We  have  the  same 

31 


CAMP-FIRES 

classics  in  literature,  from  the  English  Bible  down. 
We  have  been  nourished  on  the  same  conceptions  of 
self-reliance  and  fair  play,  individual  liberty  and 
social  order.  We  have  the  same  respect  for  prac 
tical  efficiency,  though  I  think  the  British  lay  more 
stress  on  solidity,  the  Americans  on  rapidity,  of 
work.  We  feel  the  same  aversion  from  autocracy 
and  disgust  for  lawlessness.  We  like  to  deal  with 
hard  facts;  but 

"We  live  by  admiration,  hope,  and  love." 

We  resemble  each  other  enough  in  great  things,  and 
differ  enough  in  small,  to  make  a  mutual  understand 
ing  easy,  profitable,  and  durable, — provided  we  do 
not  suffer  the  petty  politicians  to  spoil  it  by  frivo 
lous  pranks. 

Who  can  doubt  that  this  good  understanding 
has  been  increasing  and  deepening  through  the 
hundred  and  seven  years  of  peace  between  Britain 
and  America?  We  have  had  disputes,  but  they 
have  been  settled  by  the  method  of  reason  and 
justice.  A  thousand  ties  of  grateful  friendship  have 
been  woven  between  British  and  American  homes. 
The  best  book  on  the  American  Commonwealth  has 
been  written  by  Viscount  Bryce,  a  North  Briton; 

32 


A    CERTAIN    INSULARITY 

and  the  best  book  on  the  British  Constitution  by 
President  Lowell  of  Harvard,  a  New  Englander.  Of 
course  there  are  still  things  in  American  humor 
which  the  average  Britisher  does  not  catch  until  the 
next  day,  and  things  in  British  humor  which  the 
average  Yankee  never  gets  at  all.  But  upon  the 
whole  we  have  learned  to  "swap  jokes"  with  recip 
rocal  enjoyment.  Since  the  common  experience 
of  our  soldiers  in  the  great  war,  fighting  side  by 
side  in  the  same  cause  with  France,  we  have  learned 
that  the  British  are  not  "a  nation  of  shopkeepers,*' 
and  they  have  learned  that  the  Americans  are  not 
"a  tribe  of  dollar-worshippers." 

Yes,  I  think  they  even  understand  what  we  mean 
when  we  join  with  them  heartily  in  singing  God 
Save  the  King,  but  refrain  from  Ride  Britannia  on 
the  ground  that  "the  tune  is  unfamiliar." 

But  there  is  no  reserve  nor  coolness  in  our  love 
and  admiration  for  their  sea-girt  home  where  our 
forefathers  once  lived, — 

"A  right  little,  tight  little  island." 

No  wonder  they  are  proud  of  it.  From  Land's 
End  to  John  O'Groat's  House,  from  the  white  cliffs 
of  the  Channel  to  the  black  crags  of  Devon  and 

33 


CAMP-FIRES 

Wales,  from  the  broads  of  Lincolnshire  to  the  firths 
and  sounds  of  Argyle  and  Ross,  from  the  rolling 
Downs  to  the  misty  Highlands,  Earth  has  nothing 
better  in  the  way  of  an  island, — 

"A  precious  stone  set  in  the  silver  sea." 

How  varied,  how  rich,  how  abundant !  It  is  full  of 
shrines  and  monuments,  yet  not  crammed  with 
them.  The  sober  splendor  of  the  cathedrals,  the 
sense  of  solid  power  in  the  cities,  the  opulent  ver 
dure  and  bloom  of  the  countryside,  the  air  of  per 
manence  and  security  alike  in  castle  and  cottage, 
the  long  intimacy  and  fresh  vigor  with  which  Na 
ture  responds  to  the  touch  of  man, — all  these  things 
steal  upon  your  heart  quietly  and  irresistibly  and 
make  you  feel  that  Great  Britain  is  the  most  won 
derful  country  in  the  world  next  to  your  own. 

Ireland  also  is  an  island, — a  very  beautiful  one, 
— and  it  has  its  own  insularity.  The  trouble  is  that 
it  has  two  insularities,  one  to  the  north,  and  one  to 
the  south.  When  they  are  harmonized  to  desire 
the  same  thing  it  will  be  a  fine  day  for  the  Green 
Isle. 

There  is  a  very  pretty  illustration  botlj  of  the 
defects  and  of  the  virtues  of  insularity,  in  a  precious 

34 


A    CERTAIN    INSULARITY 

old  book.  It  seems  that  a  certain  vessel  was 
wrecked  long  ago  on  an  island  called  Malta.  The 
ship  was  acting,  in  a  way,  as  a  government  trans 
port,  for  she  carried  a  prisoner  of  state,  named 
Paul,  with  his  military  guard.  Now  their  guide- 
post  was  marked  "Rome."  But  by  reason  of  the 
present  rain  and  the  cold  they  had  urgent  need 
of  a  camp-fire.  This  the  islanders  kindled,  Paul 
helping  them.  As  he  was  laying  sticks  on  the  flame, 
a  little  poison-snake  sprang  out  and  fastened  on  his 
hand.  Whereupon  the  islanders  concluded  that  he 
was  a  murderer  pursued  by  the  divine  Nemesis. 
But  when  he  shook  off  the  deadly  worm  and  felt  no 
harm,  they  promptly  changed  their  minds  and  said 
that  he  was  a  god.  These  superstitions  and  ex 
treme  judgments  belong  to  the  dangerous  side  of 
insularity.  But  the  good  side  came  out  when  the 
islanders  took  the  castaways  into  comfortable  win 
ter  quarters,  entertained  them  hospitably  for  three 
months,  and  loaded  them  with  useful  gifts  at  their 
departure. 

I  have  been  struck  of  late  by  the  multitude  of 
unsuspected  islands  in  the  world. 

Regions  supposed  to  be  continental  turn  out  to 
be  surrounded  by  water.  Princeton,  New  Jersey, 

35 


CAMP-FIRES 

where  I  live,  is  discovered  to  have  an  insular  qual 
ity,  being  enclosed  by  two  rivers,  a  canal,  and  the 
Atlantic  Ocean.  The  completion  of  the  Panama 
Canal  places  the  United  States  on  an  island.  Rather 
a  large  one,  it  is  true,  but  perhaps  the  subtle  influ 
ence  of  this  geographical  circumstance  may  have 
had  something  to  do  with  a  recent  acute  attack  of 
insularity  in  the  Senate. 

In  fact,  reader,  you  can  make  an  island  out  of 
almost  anything,  if  you  wish  to.  An  exclusive 
creed,  an  arbitrary  taste,  a  political  dogmatism,  a 
closed  mind,  a  dislike  for  children  and  dogs,  yes, 
even  a  passion  for  musk  as  a  personal  perfume,  will 
serve  well  enough  to  cut  you  off  from  other  people 
if  that  is  what  you  wish. 

But  that  is  certainly  the  wrong  kind  of  insularity. 
You  might  as  well  be  cast  away  on  an  uninhabited 
atoll. 

The  best  islanders,  it  seems  to  me,  are  those  who 
live  on  their  islands  not  as  hermits,  nor  as  pirates, 
but  as  good  and  hospitable  neighbors;  pleased  with 
their  own  isle,  trying  to  improve  it,  and  keeping  up 
communications  with  the  rest  of  the  archipelago. 

There  is  a  great  difference  between  insularity  and 
isolation. 

36 


Ill 

A    BASKET    OF    CHIPS 

USE  these  for  your  own  fire,  reader,  if  you  think 
they  are  dry  enough  to  make  it  burn  brighter.  I 
don't  ask  you  to  agree  with  me;  but  let  me  sit  be 
side  you  while  you  prove  me  wrong.  The  wet- 
blanket  is  the  only  man  I  can't  endure. 

*  * 

Life  is  just  the  process  of  discovering  our  rela 
tionships.  While  they  increase,  we  grow.  When 
they  diminish,  we  shrink.  There  is  no  death  ex 
cept  for  those  who  shut  themselves  up  and  out. 

*  * 

First  comes  a  declaration  of  independence:  then 

a  recognition  of  interdependence. 

*  * 

It  is  a  pity  that  men  should  be  divided  by  their 

pleasures  more  than  by  their  work. 

*  * 

We  have  a  word  for  suffering  together, — sym- 

[pathy.   But  where  is  the  word  for  rejoicing  together  ? 

*  * 

Every  possible  form  of  government  has  been 
tried,  and  found  both  good  and  bad.  They  would 

37 


CAMP-FIRES 

all  be  intolerable  but  for  the  quiet  people  who  trust 
in  the  Lord  and  do  good.     They  are  the  only  ones 
who  count.     Wherefore  I  believe  there  is  an  in 
visible  kingdom  which  cannot  be  shaken. 
*    * 

Why  quarrel  about  the  social  order?    It  is  the 
social  spirit  that  makes  the  difference. 


, 


sat  next  a  fat  commercial  traveller  in  the 
smoking-car.  He  wore  large  diamonds,  knew  noth 
ing,  and  found  fault  (profanely)  with  everything 
except  the  Russian  Soviets  and  the  Sinn  Fein  Re 
public.  God  pity  his  wife, — unless  she  was  like 

him. 

*  * 

"Tact,"  said  a  witty  lady,  "is  the  unsaid  part  of 
what  you  think."  Yes,  and  there  is  only  one  thing 
more  potent, — its  opposite, — the  unthought  part  of 

what  you  say. 

*  * 

In  the  big  woods  this  is  the  law:  Every  trapper 
must  keep  to  his  own  line  of  traps,  but  the  camp- 
fire  is  open  to  all  comers.  If  you  are  hungry,  part 
of  the  food  belongs  to  you.  But  if  you  take  what 

38 


CHIPS 

you  don't  need,  you  are  a  thief  and  liable  to  be 

shot. 

*  * 

Doubt  is  like  fog.     It  hides  things,  but  it  does 

not  destroy  them. 

*  * 

It  is  easier  to  get  what  we  like  than  to  escape 
from  what  we  dislike.  Good  music  is  not  difficult 
to  obtain.  But  it  is  hard  to  get  away  from  the 
ugly  noises  with  which  the  modern  city  is  cursed. 
To  open  a  fine  vista  you  have  only  to  cut  a  few 
trees.  But  to  shut  out  an  ugly  view  you  must 
plant  a  grove  and  wait  for  it  to  grow.  You  will 
teach  your  children  good  principles  more  readily 

than  you  will  rid  them  of  bad  habits. 

*  * 

It  is  not  BummelPs  ignorance  that  offends  me. 

It  is  his  ignoring  of  his  ignorance. 

*  * 

"Caesar's  wife  must  be  above  suspicion."     Cer-  \ 
Itainly!     But  how  about  Caesar?     I  know  of  no 
i  pro  verb  more  Turkish  than  this. 

*  * 

'Tis  a  poor  education  of  which  the  chief  result  is 
'the  acquisition  of  prejudices. 


CAMP-FIRES 

The  statesman  who  always  follows  public  opinion 
is  a  pilot  who  always  steers  with  the  tide.  He 
doesn't  earn  his  fee. 

*    * 

The  mother  of  poets  is  the  Earth;  their  father  is 
the  Great  Spirit. 


40 


IV 

SELF,    NEIGHBOR,    AND    COMPANY 

IN  every  one  of  those  ambulant  firms  doing  busi 
ness  in  life,  which  we  call  human  beings,  there  are 
three  members:  the  irreducible  individual,  the 
social  colleague,  and  the  divine  silent  partner. 

The  last,  it  appears,  may  sometimes  be  excluded 
from  participation  in  the  affairs  of  the  firm.  But 
in  that  case  there  is  always  a  danger  that  the  re 
maining  two,  (being  by  nature  as  inseparable  as 
the  Siamese  Twins,)  will  come  to  the  calamity  of  a 
falling-out,  in  which  the  interests  of  one  or  the  other 
will  suffer,  or,  as  more  frequently  happens,  they 
will  decline  together  toward  a  common  bankruptcy. 

This,  you  will  readily  perceive,  is  a  metaphorical 
statement  which  demands  some  exercise  of  the 
imagination  to  bring  it  within  the  rubric  under 
which  the  editor  of  Scribner's  announced  some  of 
these  essays, — "comment  on  current  events." 

The  current  events  that  interest  me  most  are  not 
those  which  glitter  upon  the  surface  and  attract 
publicity,  nor  those  which  can  be  "head-lined,"  nor 

41 


CAMP-FIRES 

those  which  emerged  yesterday  with  a  splash  and 
are  likely  to  disappear  to-morrow  or  next  day  under 
impermanent  ripples;  but  those  which  began  long 
ago  and  promise  or  threaten  to  continue  a  long 
time,  those  which  are  unmarketable  as  news,  those 
which  run  beneath  the  noise  and  turbulence  of 
clashing  waves.  In  short,  I  propose  to  find  my 
themes  in  undercurrent  events,  and  my  illustrations 
as  Providence  may  send  them  floating  along. 

Daily  happenings  can  best  be  understood  through 
a  knowledge  of  human  nature.  The  key  to  public 
problems  is  in  the  custody  of  private  life. 

That  is  what  I  want  to  talk  about,  and  that  is 
why  I  invite  consideration  of  the  fortunes  of  the 
old-established,  much-imperilled,  indispensable  firm 
of  Self,  Neighbor,  and  Company. 

I 

ONE  of  the  chief  things  we  have  to  do,  on  arrival 
in  this  strange  world,  is  to  make  our  own  acquain 
tance.  The  baby  does  not  know  himself  at  all  when 
he  begins  life.  He  learns  to  know  his  food,  his  ball, 
his  cradle,  his  mother,  other  members  of  the  fam 
ily,  even  the  household  cat,  before  he  knows  any 
thing  about  himself. 

42 


SELF,    NEIGHBOR    &    CO. 

"The  baby  new  to  earth  and  sky, 

What  time  his  tender  palm  is  prest 
Against  the  circle  of  the  breast, 
Has  never  thought  that  'this  is  I.'  " 

When  he  begins  to  talk  he  often  shows  this 
limitation  in  the  manner  of  his  speech.  He  does 
not  say,  "I  am  hungry,"  "I  want  so  and  so."  He 
says  "Billy  hungry";  "Billy  wants";  as  if  Billy 
were  a  simple  force  of  nature.  And  this,  in  a  cer 
tain  sense,  is  all  that  Billy  is  at  that  stage  of  his 
growth. 

But  presently  he  becomes  aware  that  behind 
these  powers  of  seeing  and  hearing,  there  is  some 
one  who  sees  and  hears.  Behind  these  feelings  of 
hunger  and  cold,  there  is  some  one  who  wants  to  be 
fed  and  warmed.  Underneath  all  these  services 
which  his  mother  and  other  persons  render  to  the 
baby,  there  is  a  little  person  whom  they  love  and 
whom  they  wish  to  love  them  in  return.  That  is  a 
wonderful  discovery.  The  baby  becomes  his  own 
Christopher  Columbus.  He  finds  himself, — his  me. 

Of  course  it  is  an  unexplored  continent, — bound 
aries,  climate,  contents,  all  unknown.  But  it  ex 
ists.  It  is  just  as  real  as  anything  outside  of  it. 

He  soon  learns  to  distinguish  this  little  person 
43 


CAMP-FIRES 

from  exterior  things,  even  from  the  house  and  the 
body  in  which  he  lives.  He  says  "my  foot,  my 
hand,  my  head,"  claiming  ownership,  but  knowing 
that  neither  foot  nor  hand  nor  head  is  himself.  He 
discriminates  among  the  people  and  other  living 
creatures  around  him, — some  friendly  and  some 
hostile.  He  begins  to  grasp,  rather  slowly,  the  dis 
tinction  between  his  own  things  and  the  things  of 
others.  He  learns  that  the  appetites  and  desires, 
which  at  first  seemed  irresistible  powers  of  nature, 
are  personal  to  himself  and  must  be  controlled  in 
relation  to  the  wants  and  needs  of  other  persons 
around  him,  otherwise  disagreeable  consequences 
will  ensue.  He  finds  out  not  only  that  Billy  is,  but 
that  Billy  belongs.  He  exists,  but  not  alone.  He  is 
part  of  a  circle  of  life.  Into  this  circle  he  must  try 
to  fit  his  new-found  self,  for  joy  or  sorrow,  for  good 
or  ill. 

It  is  from  this  double  discovery, — the  finding  of 
himself,  and  the  finding  of  his  relation  to  things  and 
to  other  persons, — that  his  whole  growth  as  a  man, 
a  thinking,  feeling,  acting  individual,  must  proceed. 
His  schooling,  his  pleasures,  his  friendships,  his  oc 
cupation,  his  citizenship,  everything  must  be  under 
the  wing-and-wing  impulse  of  these  two  facts:  first, 
that  Billy  is;  and  second,  that  Billy  belongs. 

44 


SELF,    NEIGHBOR    &    CO. 

If  we  have  no  real  self,  no  thoughts,  no  feelings, 
no  personality  of  our  own,  we  are  not  persons  at 
all.  We  are  mere  parts  of  a  machine. 

If  on  the  other  hand  we  are  ruled  only  by  self- 
will,  self-interest,  we  are  sure  to  injure  other  peo 
ple,  and  in  the  end  to  destroy  our  own  happiness. 
We  become  objectionable  members  of  the  commu 
nity,  nuisances,  if  not  criminals. 

The  most  difficult  problem  in  the  conduct  of  life 
is  the  harmonizing  of  these  two  principles,  so  that 
they  will  work  together. 

Every  one  is  born  an  individual,  a  self;  and  that 
self  has  the  right  (which  is  also  a  duty)  to  live  and 
grow. 

Every  one  is  likewise  born  a  neighbor;  with  ties 
and  obligations  and  duties  which  spread  out  on  all 
sides.  Which  has  the  higher  claim?  Or  are  they 
equal  ? 

In  theory  it  is  easy  to  find  an  answer  sounding 
well  enough.  But  in  practice,  when  there  are  only 
two  partners  in  the  firm,  they  often  come  to  a  dead- 
lockjand  stand  bickering  in  a  grievous  desperation 
betwixt  the  devil  of  Egoism  and  the  deep  sea  of 
Altruism. 

Of  the  two,  it  must  be  admitted,  the  devil  has 
the  closer  hold  on  us,  but  the  deep  sea  is  by  far  the 

45 


CAMP-FIRES 

cleaner  and  less  treacherous.  Yet  I  confess  to  a 
rooted  distrust  of  all  "isms."  They  imply  a  sur 
render  of  something  precious;  they  hint  mutilation 
and  bondage,  j 

Is  there  no  way  of  breaking  the  deadlock,  of 
reconciling  the  apparently  conflicting  interests  and 
saving  the  firm?  The  only  way  that  I  can  see  is 
through  the  guidance  and  authority  of  the  third 
partner,  who  is  so  much  wiser  and  more  fair  than 
either  of  the  others,  to  both  of  whom,  indeed,  he  is 
bound  by  an  equal  love.  To  believe  this  and  to  act 
upon  it  is  religion. 

Ordinarily,  if  we  speak  of  religion  at  all,  we  use 
quiet  tones  and  conventional  words.  But  there  are 
times  when  the  want  of  it  haunts  us  like  a  passion, 
burns  us  like  a  fever,  pierces  us  to  the  marrow  with 
unendurable  cold.  Out  of  some  tragic  clash  of  duty 
and  desire;  after  some  harrowing  vision  of  the  wide 
spread  sufferings  of  mankind,  some  poignant  hear 
ing  of 

"  the  fierce  confederate  storm 
Of  sorrow  barricadoed  evermore 
Within  the  walls  of  cities"; 

under  some  tense  pressure  of  reproach,  regret,  and 
fear;  out  of  our  bewilderment  and  urgent  need,  we 

46 


SELF,    NEIGHBOR    &    CO. 

would  fain  cry  aloud,  as  a  confused  soul  in  mortal 
peril  might  shout  for  guidance  and  help. 

But  the  answer  would  come  then,  as  it  comes  now, 
not  in  the  whirlwind,  the  earthquake,  or  the  fire, 
but  in  a  voice  of  gentle  stillness,  saying,  "Thou 
shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself."  Here  is  balm 
of  Gilead;  oil  and  wine  for  the  broken  traveller  on 
the  Jericho  Road;  social  wisdom  from  the  fountain- 
head  for  the  individual  and  for  society.  Here  is  the 
heavenly  plan  of  the  silent  partner,  to  be  worked 
out  through  all  the  world's  experiments.  Without 
this,  none  of  them  can  succeed,  be  it  never  so  an 
gelic.  With  this,  none  but  the  devilish  ones  can 
utterly  fail. 

II 

How  then  are  we  entitled  and  bound  to  love 
self  ?  That,  of  course,  is  the  first  question,  for  upon 
the  answer  to  that  depends  the  line  of  love  which  we 
must  follow  toward  our  neighbor. 

Said  Rabbi  Hillel:  "If  I  am  not  for  myself,  who 
will  be  for  me  ?  But  if  I  care  for  myself  only,  what 
am  I  ?  And  if  not  now,  when  ?  " 

Everybody  will  agree  that  we  must  not  have  a 
foolish,  fond,  pampering,  spoiling  affection  for  our- 

47 


CAMP-FIRES 

selves.  We  ought  not  to  indulge  our  own  whims 
and  passions,  our  sloth  and  selfishness.  We  ought 
to  dislike  and  repress  that  which  is  evil  and  mean  in 
us,  and  to  cherish  that  which  is  good  and  generous. 
The  only  kind  of  love  for  ourselves  which  is  per 
missible  must  be  wise  and  clean  and  careful;  it  must 
have  justice  in  it  as  well  as  mercy;  it  must  be  capa 
ble  of  discipline  as  well  as  of  encouragement;  it 
must  strive  to  keep  the  soul  above  the  body,  and  to 
develop  both.  ~4r~~ 

Precisely  thus,  and  not  otherwise,  we  should  love 
our  neighbors:  with  a  steady,  sane,  liberating  and 
helpful  love,  which  always  seeks  to  bring  out  their 
best. 

We  and  they  are  bound  up  together  in  the  bundle 
of  life.  We  cannot  advance  if  they  go  backward. 
We  cannot  be  truly  happy  if  they  abide  in  misery. 
We  cannot  be  really  saved  if  we  make  no  effort  to 
save  them.  We  must  withstand  in  them,  just  as  in 
ourselves,  the  things  that  are  evil  and  ought  not  to 
be  loved. 

Religion  does  not  tell  us  to  love  or  to  encourage 
our  neighbors'  faults:  but  to  love  them  in  spite  of 
their  faults  and  to  do  what  we  can  to  better  them. 

True  neighbor-love,  then,  will  not  be  a  weak, 
48 


SELF,    NEIGHBOR    &    CO. 

wras,  sentimental  thing.  It  will  have  a  con 
science.  It  will  be  capable,  ottr,ooeasroHs-of  friendly 
warning  and  reproof.  It  will  even  accept,  if  need  be 
for  the  protection  of  ourselves  and  other  neighbors, 
^OrfbDBstwfckA  punishment.  I  may  have  a 
rowdy  or  a  thief  for  a  neighbor,  but  my  love  ought 
not  to  embrace  rowdiness  or  thievery  in  him  any 
more  than  in  myself.  The  same  thing  is  true  of 
malice  or  envy  or  laziness  or  a  slanderous  tongue. 

But  the  trouble  with  us  is  that  our  self-reproach  is 
commonly  too  soft  and  tender  even  to  pierce  the 
skin,  while  most  of  the  reproof  or  restraint  or  pun 
ishment  which  we  give  the  neighbor  is  not  really 
animated  by  love,  but  by  malice,  or  jealousy,  or 
contempt.  That  is  why  it  so  often  fails.  It  mXist 
have  good-will  back  of  it  and  shining  through  it. 

If  the  people  of  a  community  who  are  thoroughly 

good  in  themselves  would  also  be  good  for  others, 
\.  ^. 

they  would  have  power  to  lift  up  the  whole  tone  of 
life  and  would  be  ten  times  more  happy,  and  more 
useful. 

Doing  one's  duty  on  the  side  of  neighborhood 
leads  to  the  best  results  on  the  side  of  personality. 

If  a  man  concentrates  his  attention  and  affection 
and  effort  on  himself,  he  is  not  doing  the  best,  but 

49 


CAMP-FIRES 

the  worst  for  himself.  He  is  going  to  be  a  smooth, 
self-satisfied  prig,  or  a  so^f  old  curmudgeon.  Even 
if  he  has  some  kind  of  a  theology  it  will  not  do  him 
much  good.  It  is  sure  to  be  as  narrow  and  hollow 
as  an  empty  razor-shell  on  the  beach. 

According  to  the  Bible,  that  kind  of  theology  does 
not  count  with  God.  He  cares  more  for  sinners  than 
for  the  self-righteous.  But  he  cares  most  for  the 
neighborly  folks  who  try  to  do  right.  They  are 
his  salt  of  the  earth.  They  are  his  lights  in  the 
world. 

Some  Christians  are  like  candles  that  have  been 
lit  once  and  then  put  away  in  a  cupboard  to  be 
eaten  up  by  mice.  How  much  better  to  stay  lit  and 
keep  on  burning  even  till  the  candle  is  burned  out, 
so  long  as  it  gives  light ! 

There  are  plehty  of  us  who  love  ourselves  as  if 
we  were  our  own  grandmothers.  Whenever  the 
little  chap  cries  for  more  candy,  or  somebody  else's 
doll,  we  let  him  have  it.  Dear  little  fellow,  he  is  so 
cunning! 

But  the  scriptural  image  of  the  divine  love,  which 
is  to  be  our  pattern,  is  not  indulgent  grandmother- 
hood  but  perfect  fatherhood.  Now  a  good  father 
desires  each  of  his  children  to  grow  up,  to  develop. 

50 


SELF,    NEIGHBOR    &    CO. 

He  does  not  wish  them  all  alike.  But  he  wishes  the 
whole  family  to  have  peace  and  happiness.  He 
wants  harmony  from  the  different  instruments. 

Equality  of  condition  is  nowhere  written  in  the 
Christian  programme.  In  fact  the  parable  of  the 
talents  implies  a  continuing  state  of  inequality. 

Yet  the  real  curse  of  the  one-talent  man  is  not  the 
poverty  of  his  portion,  but  the  meanness  and  selfish 
ness  of  his  heart.  He  is  a  slacker,  a  shirker,  a 
striker,  a  lock-out  man,  a  parasite.  His  unused 
talent  becomes  a  fungus. 

That  the  rich  and  the  poor  are  likely  to  be  with 
us  as  long  as  men  differ  in  ability  and  industry,  is 
clearly  intimated  in  the  Good  Book  as  well  as  in 
the  dry  tables  of  political  economy.  But  the  Good 
Book  adds  a  prediction  of  woe  to  the  rich  if  they 
suffer  the  pride  of  wealth  to  divide  them  from  the 
poor. 

"Go  to,  now,  ye  rich  men,  weep  and  howl  for 
your  miseries  that  shall  come  upon  you.  Your 
riches  are  corrupted  and  your  garments  are  moth- 
eaten.  Your  gold  and  silver  is  cankered;  and  the 
rust  of  them  shall  be  a  witness  against  you,  and 
shall  eat  your  flesh  as  it  were  fire." 

Let  the  economist  write  this  into  his  tables;  it  is 
51 


CAMP-FIRES 

essential  to  the  correctness  of  his  computations  for 
this  world  as  well  as  for  the  next. 

Outward  equality  of  goods  without  the  spirit  of 
neighborliness  is  equivalent  to  an  inward  com 
munity  of  evils.  I  cannot  imagine  a  state  more  like 
hell,  this  side  of  Russia.  Yet  even  in  Russia  the 
outward  equality  is  a  sham,  a  gross  and  palpable 
fraud.  Who  will  assert  so  much  as  a  decent  sem 
blance  of  parity  between  Lenine  fattening  in  his 
stolen  palace  and  Andreyef  starving  to  death  in 
exile? 

Charity  is  scorned  and  derided  by  the  modern 
communist.  He  will  none  of  it.  But  who  can  con 
ceive  a  social  order,  framed  of  the  present  human 
stuff,  in  which  kindness  will  not  be  desirable,  neces 
sary,  and  beautiful? 

Kindness  is  more  than  mercy  tempering  justice. 
It  is  love  thoughtless  of  reward.  It  is  that  godlike 
impulse  which  gives  to  others  not  barely  what  they 
have  earned,  but  what  they  need. 

None  of  us  can  get  through  life  without  needing 
charity  and  longing  for  it;  and  there  is  much  com 
fort  in  the  promise  that  if  we  show  it  on  earth  we 
shall  find  it  in  Heaven. 


SELF,    NEIGHBOR    &    CO. 

Ill 

WAR,  with  its  attendant  horrors,  seems  like  an 
outrage  upon  love.  And  so  it  is,  in  its  origin  and 
source.  "From  whence  come  wars  and  fightings 
among  you?  Come  they  not  hence,  even  of  your 
lusts  that  war  in  your  members  ?  Ye  lust  and  have 
not:  ye  kill,  and  desire  to  have,  and  cannot  obtain." 

Yet  there  is  a  war  against  war  which  is  set  in  the 
ivery  key  of  "Love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself."  It  was 
to  frustrate  a  gigantic  crime  and  to  redress  villain 
ous  wrong  that  the  Allies  took  up  arms  in  the  World 
War,  and  America  at  last  joined  them.  Had  her 
heart  been  quicker,  her  feet  more  swift,  she  might 
lave  reached  the  Jericho  Road  in  time  to  stop  the 
robbers  before  they  began  their  cruel  work.  Who 
can  tell  ?  At  least,  having  arrived,  she  did  her  best 
and  beat  them  off. 

Great  sacrifice,  but  far  greater  reward,  came  to 
America  in  the  doing  of  that  clear  duty.  Never 
were  "we,  the  people  of  the  United  States,"  so 
thoroughly  united  as  in  that  vast  co-operation. 
Not  only  in  mobilizing  all  our  forces  and  resources 
For  the  urgent  business  of  battle,  but  also  in  utiliz 
ing  all  the  powers  of  sympathy  and  help  that  rust 

53 


CAMP-FIRES 

unused  in  men,  women,  and  children,  for  the  Good 
Samaritan  work  of  Red  Cross  and  Relief  Commis 
sion,  we  learned  what  it  means  to  be  born  a  neighbor 
as  well  as  a  person. 

The  self-sufficiency,  not  to  say  self-complacency, 
of  the  American  temperament  was  absorbed  and 
fused  into  something  larger  and  better.  For  a  while 
we  ceased  to  satisfy  ourselves  with  "paddle  your 
own  canoe,"  and  took  up  the  finer  motto,  "for  the 
good  of  the  ship." 

With  all  its  trials,  privations,  and  sorrows, — yes, 
even  despite  its  individual  exposures  of  greed  and 
graft, — the  war-time  was  a  time  of  elevation  and 
enlargement  of  spirit  for  the  people  of  America. 

Why  not  carry  these  benefits  of  a  just  war  well 
won,  with  us  into  the  time  of  peace  ?  Why  not  keep 
the  lesson  learned  at  such  a  cost  ?  No  man,  no  com 
munity,  no  nation  liveth  to  self  alone. 

Joubert  has  well  said:  "To  wish  to  do  without 
other  men  and  to  be  under  obligation  to  no  one,  is  a 
sure  mark  of  a  mind  devoid  of  feeling."  To  this  I 
would  add:  A  mind  devoid  of  feeling  never  reasons 
right  in  the  affairs  of  life,  because  feeling  is  a  vital 
element  of  sound  reasoning. 


54 


SELF,    NEIGHBOR    &    CO. 

IV 

Two  philosophies  have  long  contended  for  the 
control  of  thought.  One  is  called  Individualism, 
because  it  lays  the  emphasis  upon  the  single  person, 
his  rights,  privileges,  liberties,  happiness.  The 
other  is  called  Socialism,  because  it  lays  the  em 
phasis  on  the  community.  The  partisans  of  these 
two  theories  fight  each  other  furiously. 

It  seems  to  me  that  both  theories  are  wrong,  when 
they  are  interpreted  exclusively  and  with  damna 
tory  clauses.  Each  has  a  ray  of  truth  in  it  when  it 
takes  account  of  the  other. 

The  most  perfect  type  of  individualism  is  the 
"rogue"  elephant, — solitary,  predatory,  miserable, — 
a  torment  to  himself  and  a  terror  to  others. 

The  most  perfect  example  of  pure  socialism  is  a 
swarm  of  bees,  where  personality  is  nil,  every  mem 
ber  gets  the  same  pay,— board  and  lodging, — and 
the  only  object  is  to  perpetuate  the  swarm  and  keep 
the  hive  full. 

But  without  the  aid  of  man  they  never  produce  a 
better  bee  or  a  more  perfect  hive.  Is  humanity  to 
come  down  to  that  level? 

The  Talmud  speaks  scorn  of  a  world  where  "one 
55 


CAMP-FIRES 

man  eats  and  another  says  grace."  Is  it  much 
better  than  a  world  where  everybody  gorges  and 
nobody  says  grace? 

I  can  see  no  reason,  either  in  morals  or  in  re 
ligion,  for  the  perpetuation  of  the  human  swarm, 
except  for  the  development  and  perfecting  of  the 
human  souls  who  make  mankind.  What  real  good 
appears  in  the  mere  continuance  of  any  community, 
say  New  York  or  Nyack,  unless  you  think  of  the 
men  and  women  and  children  who  live  there,  each 
one  the  inheritor  of  a  spark  of  the  Divine  Life, 
which  may  be  cherished  and  enlarged  into  a  flame 
of  beautiful  and  potent  light?  There  is  your  rea 
son  for  sacrifice.  There  is  your  reason  for  service. 
The  community  has  a  claim  to  live  for  the  sake  of 
the  better  men  and  women  who  are  going  to  live  in 
it  and  make  it  better. 

So  then,  amid  the  confusion  at  the  present  cross 
roads  where  the  counsels  of  the  many  are  so  loud 
and  divergent,  we  find  a  little  neglected  guide-post. 
Look,  'tis  so  old  and  weather-beaten  that  some  of 
the  letters  are  worn  away;  yet  the  sense  of  it  is  still 
legible: 

LOVE— NEIGHBOR— SELF 
56 


SELF,    NEIGHBOR    &    CO. 

It  reads  like  a  general  order. 

Suppose  we  should  try  one  of  these  roads  marked 
"Government  Ownership"  or  "Collective  Bargain 
ing"  or  "High  Productiveness"  or  "Independence 
of  Employers"  or  "Control  by  Employees,"  and 
find  that  it  was  leading  us  away  from  our  objective. 
Might  not  the  order  nerve  us  to  turn  back  ? 

Or,  if  the  road  seemed  to  be  a  right  one,  evidently 
bringing  us  nearer  to  our  objective,  wouldn't  the 
order  encourage  us  to  carry  on,  and  cheer  us  through 
the  hardships  of  the  way  ? 

Let  no  one  imagine  that  it  will  be  easy.  A  gen 
eral  order  is  far  more  difficult  to  follow  than  a 
definite  programme.  Most  men  prefer  a  concrete 
dose  of  medicine,  however  bitter,  to  a  long  course 
of  hygienic  living. 

To  live  up  to  a  principle  is  harder  than  to  obey  a 
rule.  But  just  for  that  reason  it  may  be  better. 

Let  us  try  it,  Self  and  Neighbor,  try  it  more 
seriously  than  we  have  yet  done.  The  drop  of 
good- will  in  all  our  experiments!  The  touch  of 
kindness  in  all  our  efforts !  The  purpose  of  benefi- 
cenc£  jui-all-cwr-'plaiis !  For  a  year,  a  month,  even 
a  week, — do  you  think  we  can  do  it  ? 

You  are  my  partner,  and  I  am  yours.  But  ia  tell 
^  57 


CAMP-FIRES 

the  truth,  between  us  we  have  small  capital  and  less 
experience.  To  carry  out  this  enterprise  we  shall 
need  the  help  of  our  third  partner, — the  divine 
silent  one  who  knows  all. 


58 


SYMPATHETIC    ANTIPATHIES 

BEING  by  conviction  as  well  as  by  profession  an 
adherent  of  the  creed  of  good-will  and  an  advocate 
of  universal  charity,  I  am  not  a  little  chagrined  to 
discover,  (and  hereby  confess,)  the  considerable 
part  which  distastes  and  antipathies  play  in  my 
life. 

My  likings  are  strong  enough  to  give  assurance 
of  health.  The  charms  of  a  wooded  mountain  coun 
try  and  swift-flowing  streams;  American  elm-trees, 
white  pines,  and  silver  birches;  the  taste  of  fresh 
asparagus,  green  peppers,  and  bacon;  the  company 
of  frank,  lively,  sensible,  and  unenvious  people;  the 
reading  of  books  well  written  on  subjects  worth 
writing  about; — to  all  these  and  many  other  attrac 
tions  I  am  open  and  pliable,  without  much  reason 
ing  or  moral  suasion. 

On  the  other  hand  my  dislikings,  though  less 
numerous,  are  quite  as  strong.  A  flat,  bald  country, 
dry  or  damp;  dumplings,  veal,  and  salt  codfish;  a 
clay  soil ;  a  lymphatic  temperament  in  a  woman,  and 
a  sour,  jealous  disposition  in  a  man;  books  about 

59 


CAMP-FIRES 

nothing,  written  in  a  sloppy  or  pretentious  style — 
these  are  things  that  I  cannot  abide. 

Nor  am  I  greatly  concerned  to  justify  such-like 
repugnancies  by  abstract  reasoning  or  high  ethical 
or  political  considerations.  They  belong  to  the 
sphere  of  personal  privilege.  Without  some  ad 
mixture  of  this  kind,  temperamental  rather  than 
logical,  we  can  hardly  maintain  our  existence  as  real 
individuals.  Mankind,  thus  denatured,  would  be 
reduced  to  the  dreary  stratifications  of  class-con 
sciousness.  Given  the  label  of  his  church,  or  political 
party,  or  handicraft,  or  profession,  you  could  pre 
dict  precisely  what  your  quasi-man  would  be  and 
do.  The  more  eminent  in  his  type,  the  more  sapless 
and  savorless  would  he  be  in  his  person.  He  would 
resemble  that  modern  statue  which  Julius  Hare  de 
scribes  in  "Guesses  at  Truth":  "Like  the  yolk  of 
an  egg  cased  in  the  soft  albumen  of  a  pseudo-ideal." 

A  man  refined  or  sublimated  beyond  a  capacity 
for  simple,  natural  dislikes  is  distinctly  not  a  lik 
able  character.  Beneath  the  glossy  surface  of  a 
superior  neutrality  in  minor  things,  he  may  hide  a 
major  hatred,  a  fixed,  unalterable  enmity,  irrational 
as  the  jaundice  and  implacable  as  a  vendetta. 

Give  me  rather  the  man  of  frank  though  foolish 
60 


SYMPATHETIC    ANTIPATHIES 

aversions;  the  man  who  protests  that  he  knows 
nothing  about  art  but  is  quite  sure  of  what  he  does 
not  like,  and  declines  to  be  bothered  with  it;  the 
man  who  has  no  better  cause  to  give  for  his  repug 
nancy  to  So-and-So  than  that  his  mouth  is  cut  the 
wrong  way,  or  that  he  talks  through  his  nose  and 
pronounces  "programme"  to  rhyme  with  "po 
grom."  These  are  pardonable  prejudices.  They  are 
to  be  placed  in  the  necessary,  non-moral  region  of 
human  life.  They  belong  to  the  domain  of  unac 
countable  reactions,  covered  by  the  classic  quat 
rain, — 

"I  do  not  love  thee,  Doctor  Fell, 
The  reason  why  I  cannot  tell; 
But  this  alone  I  know  full  well, 
I  do  not  love  thee,  Doctor  Fell." 

Now,  the  subject  of  these  famous  lines  was  an 
eminently  respectable  scholar  and  prelate,  dean  of 
Christ  Church,  and  afterward  Bishop  of  Oxford,  in 
the  seventeenth  century.  The  author  of  the  lines 
was  one  Tom  Brown,  a  student  at  Christ  Church, 
and  a  vagarious  fellow  whom  Addison  character 
ized  as  "of  Facetious  Memory."  Yet  I  am  prepared 
to  defend  the  irregular  Tom  Brown  in  his  confession 
that  he  disliked  the  established  John  Fell  without  as- 

61 


CAMP-FIRES 

signable  reasons.  At  all  events,  but  for  this  whim 
sical  antipathy  the  name  of  Doctor  Fell  would  never 
have  become  a  household  word.  So  far,  it  benefited 
him.  But  what  it  did  to  handicap  Tom  Brown's 
academic  career,  we  know  not. 

It  must  be  admitted,  for  candor's  sake,  that  these 
unreasoned  dislikes  are  not  generally  profitable  in 
the  affairs  of  life.  They  act  as  restraints  and  in 
hibitions:  whether  wise  or  not,  God  alone  knoweth 
that  alloweth  them. 

I  recall  that  my  father,  (of  blessed  memory,) 
had  an  aversion  from  an  unknown  man  whom  he 
used  to  meet  and  pass  in  his  morning  walks  in  the 
city  of  Brooklyn,  going  at  a  certain  hour  through 
Remsen  Street  from  his  house  to  his  study  in  the 
church  which  he  served.  This  man  he  pointed  out 
to  me  once  as  we  walked  together.  He  was  quite 
an  ordinary  citizen,  tailor-made,  glum-faced,  sour- 
looking,  with  a  white  patch  over  one  eye,  and  of  a 
general  scorbutic  appearance,  unpleasant  but  not 
terrifying.  Yet  my  father  felt  so  strong  a  detesta 
tion  for  the  mere  look  of  the  man,  that  he  regarded 
it  as  ominous  and  malign,  and  fell  into  the  habit  of 
walking  around  by  way  of  Montague  Street,  rather 
than  risk  meeting  his  bete  noire  in  Remsen  Street. 

62 


SYMPATHETIC    ANTIPATHIES 

It  was  absurd  no  doubt,  but  not  reprehensible;  and 
it  had  one  good  result, — a  little  longer  exercise  for 
my  father  in  the  fresh  air  every  morning. 

My  own  dislikings  have  often  demanded  pay 
ment  for  their  indulgence.  What  shall  a  man  who 
abhors  veal,  and  believes  that  if  he  eats  it  he  will 
presently  faint  away  and  perhaps  die  of  acute  indi 
gestion, — what  shall  such  a  man  do  at  the  tables- 
d'hote  of  Europe  ?  He  must  practise  vegetarianism, 
or  bribe  the  waiter  to  procure  a  substitute  for  the 
unleavened  Kalbfleisch. 

My  absolute  inability  to  love  flat  and  treeless 
countries,  my  positive  aversion  from  sage-brush 
and  alkali,  have  prevented  me  from  sharing  the 
eloquent  affection  of  my  Cousin  John  for  The  Desert. 
He  may  have  it  all  if  he  likes.  Also  he  may  have 
the  paintings  of  Matisse,  and  the  plays  of  the  very 
Belgian  Shakespeare,  Maeterlinck,  and  the  anthol 
ogies  of  Spoon  River  and  other  level  and  bald 
localities,  if  they  please  him.  To  me  they  are  as 
veal,  and  clay,  and  salt  codfish.  Je  m'en  fiche. 
Poorer  this  abstinence  may  make  me,  but  it  leaves 
me  honest.  And  it  does  not  deprive  me  of  the 
pleasure  of  admiring  the  gusto,  (to  use  Hazlitt's 
word,)  with  which  my  Cousin  John  praises  the  desert 

63 


CAMP-FIRES 

and  finds  excuse  for  its  lack  of  eyebrows  and  eye 
lashes  in  the  wondrous  lights  reflected  in  its  ever- 
open  eyes.  By  proxy  I  enjoy  it  through  his  enjoy 
ment. 

"But  not  for  all  his  faith  can  see, 
Would  I  that  desert-dweller  be." 

Here  we  approach,  by  a  devious  but  necessary 
detour,  the  particular  subject  of  this  paper.  Dis 
likes,  aversions,  repugnancies,  are  inevitable,  and 
therefore  to  a  certain  extent  defensible.  But  only 
those  are  wholesome  and  profitable  which  have 
in  them  a  little  ray  of  comprehension,  a  little  drop 
of  love. 

Trust  not  your  antipathies  unless  they  are  sym 
pathetic. 

Do  you  remember  how  Charles  Lamb  begins 
his  essay  on  "All  Fools'  Day"? 

"The  compliments  of  the  season  to  my  worthy 
masters,  and  a  merry  first  of  April  to  us  all!" 

How  often,  if  we  have  the  priceless  art  of  being 
sincere  with  ourselves,  do  we  recognize  in  the  quali 
ties  which  displease  us  in  others,  the  very  imps  and 
unruly  sprites  which  cause  the  most  trouble  in  our 
own  interior  economy !  At  home  we  are  inclined 

64 


SYMPATHETIC    ANTIPATHIES 

to  go  gently  with  them,  to  make  allowances,  even 
to  plead  excuse  for  our  bothersome  offspring.  And 
who  shall  say  that  this  is  altogether  wrong  or  ab 
solutely  unwise  ?  Many  a  vice  is  but  a  virtue  over 
driven.  Pruning  is  better  than  extermination. 

But  why  not  apply  the  same  principle  to  what 
we  see  in  our  neighbor's  back  garden,  or  in  his  front 
yard?  Why  not  remember  that  he  probably  has 
as  much  trouble  with  his  faults  and  foibles  as  we 
have  with  our  own  ?  And  if  they  happen  to  be  alike, 
why  not  use  them  for  self-enlightenment  and  cor 
rection  ? 

The  things  that  we  dislike  in  others  may  serve 
as  mirrors  to  ourselves.  But  let  us  not  follow  the 
example  of  that  foolish  person  described  in  the 
Epistle  of  St.  James,  who  "beholding  his  natural 
face  in  a  glass,  goeth  his  way  and  straightway  for- 
getteth  what  manner  of  man  he  was." 

Take  that  tendency  to  quick  and  fierce  anger 
which  the  Romans  called  iracundia,  and  in  later 
Latin  stomachatio,  as  if  it  were  a  sudden  rising  of 
the  gorge.  We  call  it  irascibility.  It  is  not  a  lov 
able  quality.  Yet  those  of  us  who  are  afflicted  with 
it  would  not  really  admit  that  it  is  only  and  alto 
gether  evil.  We  would  plead  the  excuses  of  right- 

65 


CAMP-FIRES 

eous  wrath;  we  would  claim  that  good  fuel  answers 
quickly  to  the  flame;  we  would  say,  as  if  it  were  a 
complete  justification,  "you  knew  I  had  a  hasty 
temper;  why  did  you  provoke  me?" 

Suppose  we  should  apply  to  others  the  same  argu 
ments  and  palliations  that  we  use  for  ourselves. 
Suppose  that  the  great  quarrel  of  to-day  between 
two  irascible  men,  in  which  the  interests  of  all  na 
tions  and  of  many  millions  of  mankind  are  involved, 
should  have  its  natural  antipathies  loosened  and 
resolved  by  the  infusion  of  a  good-humored  drop 
of  sympathy.  Would  it  not  have  a  happy  effect? 

I  like  the  advice  of  Plutarch  in  the  third  volume 
of  his  "Morals,"  where  he  says,  "Should  you  quarrel 
with  your  brother,  avoid  intercourse  with  his  enemies, 
and  hold  correspondence  with  his  friends.''9 

This  seems  to  be  a  practical  comment  on  the 
words  of  St.  Paul,  wherein  we  find  both  a  reasonable 
concession  to  the  infirmity  of  our  human  tempers 
and  a  Christian  counsel  for  controlling  them.  "Be 
ye  angry,"  says  he,  quite  positively,  as  if  we  could 
not  help  it,  "and  sin  not.  Let  not  the  sun  go  down 
upon  your  wrath." 

Anger  that  breaks  out  is  troublesome.  Anger 
that  sinks  in  is  fatal. 


SYMPATHETIC  ANTIPATHIES 

A  well-founded  mistrust  of  treacherous  persons 
we  may  keep.  But  God  save  us  from  the  poison 
of  a  cherished  grudge. 

Consider  in  like  manner,  the  foible  of  vanity. 
Nothing  is  more  apt  to  evoke  antipathy,  especially 
in  those  who  are  tinctured  with  the  same  fault. 

The  arrival  of  a  person  with  a  too  manifest  good 
opinion  of  himself  in  a  small  community  where  con 
ceit  is  endemic,  seems  like  a  direct  challenge  to  all 
the  legitimate  inheritors  of  self-complacency.  It 
becomes  their  pleasure  as  well  as  their  duty  to  meet 
the  emergency  and  to  rescue  their  neighbor  from 
his  annoying  sin. 

Sometimes  they  go  about  it  with  open  ridicule, 
which  is  wholesome  and  harmless  enough,  if  it  be 
free  from  malice.  At  other  times  a  kind  of  League 
to  Enforce  Humility  is  silently  formed  and  every 
body  is  proud  to  have  a  modest  part  in  its  work. 

The  best  leader  in  such  a  campaign  of  levelling 
improvement  is  usually  a  female  who  has  passed 
middle  age  in  unquestioned  respectability  and  has 
established  a  local  reputation  for  mordant  wit. 
Being  cased  in  the  defensive  armor  of  self-satis 
faction,  she  is  the  more  free  to  let  fly  at  random 
with  her  sharp-pointed  tongue. 

67 


CAMP-FIRES 

An  aged  dame  of  this  type  I  once  knew,  who  was 
a  terror  to  the  fresh  and  exuberant,  and  a  perpetual 
joy  to  herself.  She  was  a  past  mistress  in  the  art 
of  making  people  feel  uncomfortable  when  she 
thought  they  needed  it.  For  those  who  crossed 
her  path  in  the  flush  of  a  first  success  or  in  the  glow 
of  some  long  task  finally  accomplished,  she  had 
the  vigilant  eye  of  a  sleepless  monitor,  and  the  swift, 
unerring  weapon  of  a  winged  and  barbed  word. 
After  such  a  discharge  you  could  see  her  fluffing 
her  feathers  and  preening  herself  like  a  hen  who  has 
just  performed  the  miracle  of  laying  an  egg.  "Aha," 
she  seemed  to  say,  "did  you  watch  me  do  that? 
How  neatly  I  brought  that  cockscomb  down !  Van 
ity  is  a  thing  that  I  cannot  endure." 

One  is  reminded  of  the  great  word  which  George 
Meredith,  in  "The  Egoist,"  makes  Sir  Willoughby 
Patterne  utter  to  Clara,  his  hapless  fianc6e:  "Be 
ware  of  marrying  an  Egoist,  my  dear ! " 

An  English  rhymer  has  a  verse  on  this  subject: 

The  hunters  of  Conceit  pursue  a  fox 
Endowed  with  magic  that  deludes  and  mocks; 
He  doubles,  turns,  and  ere  they  end  the  race, 
Each  dog  that  follows  wears  a  foxy  face; 
The  scent  they  ran  by  on  themselves  is  found, 
And  now  they  chase  each  other  round  and  round. 
68 


SYMPATHETIC    ANTIPATHIES 

The  wisest  and  most  amiable  of  mankind  are  al 
ways  aware  of  this  subtle  and  tricksy  quality  of 
conceit,  which  masquerades  in  our  Sunday  clothes 
and  peeps  out  at  us  from  our  own  photographs. 
Doth  not  Michel  de  Montaigne,  after  humbly  ac 
knowledging  that  he  has  no  memory,  mollify  that 
self -accusation  by  remarking  that  "it  is  commonly 
scene  by  experience  that  excellent  memories  do 
rather  accompany  weake  judgements"?  Bravo, 
intrepid  philosopher  of  Perigord  and  writer  of  the 
most  frankly  ingenuous  essays  ever  penned !  Why 
should  we  take  umbrage  at  your  further  confes 
sion?  "Glorie  and  curiositie  are  the  scourges  of 
our  soules.  The  one  induceth  us  to  have  an  oare 
in  every  ship,  and  the  other  forbiddeth  us  to  leave 
anything  unresolved  or  undecided." 

Listen  also  to  a  more  reverend  doctor,  Blaise 
Pascal,  of  Paris  and  Port  Royal.  "We  toil  without 
ceasing,"  says  he,  "to  adorn  and  to  uphold  our 
imaginary  self,  while  we  neglect  our  true  self  alto 
gether.  We  would  gladly  act  as  poltroons  to  ac 
quire  the  reputation  of  being  brave.  Those  who 
write  against  glory  would  fain  have  the  glory  of 
having  written  well.  Those  who  read  them  would 
fain  have  the  glory  of  having  read.  And  7,  who  am 

69 


CAMP-FIRES 

writing  this,  perhaps  I  also  have  the  same  desire. 
And  you,  who  read,  perhaps  you  will  have  it  also. 
Curiosity  is  nothing  but  vanity.  Generally  one 
wishes  to  know  merely  in  order  to  talk  about  it." 

This  is  an  admirable,  thoroughgoing  discourse, 
wherein  the  preacher  includes  himself  with  the  con 
gregation,  and  admits,  smiling,  that  humor  is  not 
out  of  place  in  a  serious  sermon. 

Come  from  behind  your  pillar,  brother  Humilio ! 
Seek  not  to  evade  your  spoonful  of  the  medicine. 
Come  out,  and  let  us  all  laugh  together  and  repent 
and  try  to  mend  our  ways. 

Tis  no  new  discovery,  this  streak  of  vainglory 
running  all  through  the  stuff  of  our  humanity. 
Plutarch  lets  in  the  light  upon  it  when  he  notes  that 
those  who  praise  an  obscure  life  seek  to  win  fame  by 
their  praise  of  it.  He  compares  them  to  watermen 
"who  look  astern  while  they  row  the  boat  ahead, 
still  so  managing  the  strokes  of  the  oar  that  the 
vessel  may  make  on  to  its  port."  A  few  paragraphs 
later,  he  goes  even  beyond  this  and  praises  outright 
the  men  who  seek  honor  and  good  repute.  "Would 
you  have  them  out  of  the  way,"  he  asks  ironically, 
"for  fear  they  should  set  others  a  good  example, 
and  allure  others  to  virtue  out  of  emulation  of  the 
precedent  ?  " 

70 


SYMPATHETIC    ANTIPATHIES 

Undoubtedly  there  is  a  popular  antipathy  to 
those  who  evidently  aim  at  eminence.  Paul  Elmer 
More,  in  one  of  his  delightful  Shelburne  essays,  de 
scribes  it  as  a  lurking  malady  of  the  democratic 
spirit,  "a  kind  of  malaise  at  distinction,  wherever 
seen  and  however  manifested." 

Against  this  I  think  we  should  be  on  our  guard 
and  protect  ourselves  by  whatever  prophylactic  we 
can  find,  just  as  carefully  as  against  the  far  more 
open  fault  of  vanity.  Indeed  this  uneasy  resent 
ment  at  excellence  is  a  covert  form  of  vanity, — 
vanitas  vulgi,  which  cries  with  the  Irishman  "One 
man  is  as  good  as  another,  and  better  too !  Down 
wid  all  top-hats!" 

It  is  to  this  ingrowing  self -flattery  of  democracies 
rather  than  to  the  so-called  ingratitude  of  republics 
that  I  would  ascribe  much  of  the  niggling  detrac 
tion  that  has  followed  many  great  men  in  our  coun 
try.  First,  a  brilliant  burst  of  applause;  then  a 
steady  rain  of  abuse;  then,  (after  the  man  is  dead,)  a 
clearing  sky  and  a  worthy  monument. 

Washington,  who  liberated  the  country,  was  ac 
cused  of  truckling  to  the  British  and  tyrannizing 
over  the  Americans.  Lincoln,  who  preserved  the 
Union,  was  accused  of  currying  favor  with  the 
South  because  he  declined  to  "hang  Jeff  Davis  to  a 

71 


CAMP-FIRES 

sour  apple-tree,"  or  perform  other  vengeful  antics 
at  the  bidding  of  the  Yankee  irreconcilables.  Roose 
velt,  who  preached  and  practised  Americanism  on 
a  four-square  basis,  was  called  a  "grand-stand 
player,"  because  he  evidently  relished  the  plaudits 
which  followed  a  brave  speech  or  a  good  stroke. 
(And  now  Woodrow  Wilson  is  accused  of  the  same 
heinous  crime  of  grand-stand  play  because  he  has 
plainly  sought  the  honor  of  promoting  the  largest 
plan  to  defend  peace  on  earth  that  the  world  has 
ever  seen.  Would  that  some  of  those  who  gibe  and 
fleer  at  him  might  betray  in  themselves  a  like  am 
bition,  an  equal  willingness  to  toil,  to  put  aside  ease 
and  comfort,  to  imperil  health  and  life  itself  for  the 
sake  of  realizing  an  ideal  whose  nobility  and  gener 
ous  daring  none  can  deny./ 

Grand-stand  players,  forsooth !  Then  so  was 
Nelson  a  grand-stand  player  when  he  cried  at  Cape 
St.  Vincent  "Westminster  Abbey  or  Victory."  So 
was  William  of  Orange  when  he  aimed  to  win,  and 
won,  from  all  his  people  the  more  than  kingly  title 
of  "Father."  So  was  Themistocles,  the  savior  of 
Athens,  when  he  plainly  took  delight  in  the  applause 
of  the  stadium,  and  showed  himself  philotimotatos,  a 
lover  of  honor.  So  has  every  true  hero  and  notable 

72 


SYMPATHETIC  ANTIPATHIES 

benefactor  been  of  the  company  of  those  who  labor 
to  deserve,  and  are  not  ashamed  to  enjoy,  the  ap 
proval  of  their  fellow  men,  if  it  come  on  the  path  of 
duty  and  in  obedience  to  the  divine  command.  By 
such  renown  their  power  for  good  is  increased,  and 
the  radiance  of  their  example  is  shed  abroad  lika 
the  light  of  a  candle  set  on  a  high  place. 

Therefore  I  would  not  be  among  the  detractors  of 
the  great  or  the  minifiers  of  the  illustrious.  But 
the  same  trouble  and  toil  which  those  criticasters 
give  themselves  to  bedim  good  names  and  find  or 
paint  blots  on  fair  'scutcheons,  would  I  gladly  take 
to  brighten  the  shield  of  virtue,  to  find  the  most 
favorable  interpretation  of  the  errors  of  the  wise, 
and  to  discover  new  reasons  for  the  admiration  of 
the  excellent.  Well  spoke  Jesus  the  son  of  Sirach 
when  he  said:  "Let  us  now  praise  famous  men,  and 
our  fathers  that  begat  us;  leaders  of  the  people  by 
their  counsels,  and  by  their  understanding  men  of 
learning  for  the  people;  all  these  were  honored 
in  their  generations,  and  were  a  glory  in  their 
days." 

But  from  these  heights  let  us  return  to  the  case  of 
Themistocles.  It  offers  an  amusing  illustration  of 
the  vagaries  of  vanity  in  human  nature.  It  appears 

73 


CAMP-FIRES 

that  when  the  battle  of  Salamis  had  been  gloriously 
won  under  his  leadership,  a  council  was  held  to 
award  the  supreme  prize  of  valor.  Every  general 
present  voted  for  himself  as  FIRST  in  valor;  but 
all  voted  for  Themistocles  as  SECOND.  So  the 
prize  was  given  to  him.  And  I  imagine  that  it  was 
done  with  general  laughter  and  good  humor. 

In  fact,  the  only  kind  of  vanity  in  ourselves  that 
is  dangerous  is  that  which  cannot  endure  to  be 
laughed  at.  And  the  only  kind  of  vanity  in  others 
that  is  intolerable  is  that  which  denies  itself  to 
friendly  callers,  assumes  an  alias,  and  puts  on  the 
ragged  cloak  and  broken  sandals  of  a  mock  humil 
ity.  All  other  kinds  are  tolerable;  and  if  we  are 
honest  and  mindful  of  our  own  infirmity,  we  can  but 
feel  toward  them  a  sympathetic  antipathy. 

There  are  many  other  common  faults  and  fail 
ings  besides  vanity,  which  we  dislike  in  our  neigh 
bors  and  for  which  we  may  find  some  explanation, 
if  not  excuse,  if  we  will  but  look  more  closely  into 
ourselves. 

Does  Grandioso  exaggerate  ?  Truly,  it  is  a  griev 
ous  habit.  But  have  not  you,  dear  Piscator,  an  in 
clination  to  round  out  your  fish-stories  with  an 
extra  pound?  You  do  it  for  the  pleasure  of  your 

74 


SYMPATHETIC    ANTIPATHIES 

hearers,  of  course,  but  will  you  not  allow  the  same 
palliation  to  your  friend? 

Dogmatism  is  antipathetic  to  most  men.  Yet 
there  is  hardly  one  of  us  who  will  not  "lay  down  the 
law"  when  he  gets  on  his  favorite  subject.  So  much 
the  better,  if  we  avoid  sentences  and  penalties  for 
unbelief. 

To  tell  you  of  all  the  things  to  which  my  antip 
athies  are  sympathetic  would  be  too  long  a  tale. 
It  would  amount  to  a  last  confession  and  a  judg 
ment-day  account.  It  would  not  interest  you.  The 
camp-fire  of  this  night  burns  low.  Before  it  goes  out, 
let  us  turn  back  to  our  most  common  failing  and 
universal  antipathy,  vanity,  and  see  if  we  can  find 
a  little  guide-post  on  the  way  out. 

For  the  mitigation  and  restraint  of  conceit,  when 
it  becomes  acute  (either  in  its  gratified  or  its  un- 
gratified  form),  there  is  no  better  remedy  than  to 
frequent  the  company  of  little  people  to  whom  your 
occupation  and  your  achievements  (or  failures)  are 
unknown.  Elsewhere  you  may  find  heating  flattery, 
or  freezing  contempt.  But  here  you  may  forget 
your  wounds  and  cool  your  fever  in  that  fresh  and 
impartial  air  which  belongs  to  the  society  of  young 
children.  If  the  little  ones  see  you  sad,  they  will 

75 


CAMP-FIRES 

give  you  a  glance  of  sorrow,  they  know  not  why,  and 
then  demand  a  new  story.  If  they  see  you  glad, 
they  will  rejoice  with  you,  they  know  not  why,  and 
then  call  you  to  their  merriest  play.  It  is  helpful  to 
get  away  from  yourself. 

Let  the  writer  forsake  his  Poetry  Societies  and 
Authors*  Leagues,  and  go  into  the  woods  where 
the  lumbermen  and  guides  and  hunters  have  never 
heard  of  his  books,  and  yet  manage  to  live  with 
some  joy.  Let  the  captain  of  industry  or  finance 
take  a  little  voyage  among  the  fishermen  who  know 
nothing  of  his  triumphs  or  defeats  on  the  Exchange. 
Let  the  professor  find  friends  among  farmers  or 
commercial  travellers  who  ignore  the  difference  be 
tween  Q.E.D.  and  Ph.D.  Let  the  artist  forsake  the 
academy  or  Greenwich  Village  for  some  region  where 
his  shibboleth  is  never  spoken  because  it  cannot  be 
pronounced. 

And  the  politician, — where  shall  he  go,  in  this 
age  of  democracy  ?  Merciful  heaven,  I  know  not, — 
unless  it  be  to  a  Trappist  monastery, — or,  better 
still,  among  the  little  children,  who  are  too  young  to 
have  votes  and  too  wise  to  seek  offices. 


76 


VI 
PUBLICOMANIA 

IT  is  a  strange  thing  to  see  how  deeply  certain 
people  of  our  time  have  been  smitten  with  a  form 
of  insanity  which  we  may  call,  for  want  of  a  dic 
tionary  word,  publicomania.  The  name  is  rather 
ugly,  and  altogether  irregular,  being  of  mixed  Latin 
and  Greek  descent.  But  it  is  no  worse  than  the 
thing  it  describes,  which  is,  in  fact,  a  sort  of  mongrel 
madness.  It  has  some  kinship  with  the  Roman 
Grandio's  passion  for  celebrity  which  Seneca  sati 
rized,  and  not  a  little  likeness  to  the  petty  ostenta 
tion  of  Beau  Tibbs  at  which  Goldsmith  laughed 
kindly  in  London  a  century  ago. 

But  in  our  own  day  the  disease  has  developed 
a  new  symptom.  It  is  not  enough  to  be  pointed 
out  with  the  forefinger  of  notoriety:  the  finger 
which  points  must  be  stained  with  printer's  ink. 
The  craving  for  publicity  is  not  satisfied  with  any 
thing  but  a  paragraph  in  the  newspapers;  then  it 
wants  a  column;  and  finally  it  demands  a  whole 
page  with  illustrations.  The  delusion  consists  in 

77 


CAMP-FIRES 

the  idea  that  a  sufficient  quantity  of  this  kind  of 
.notoriety  amounts  to  fame. 

It  is  astonishing  to  observe  how  much  time,  in 
genuity,  money,  and  vital  energy,  people  who  are 
otherwise  quite  sane,  will  spend  for  the  sake  of  hav 
ing  their  names  and  unimportant  doings  chronicled, 
in  a  form  of  print  which  can  be  preserved  only  in 
private  and  very  inconvenient  scrap-books.  In 
England,  where  they  have  a  hereditary  aristocracy 
and  a  Court  Journal,  the  mania  seems  less  difficult 
to  understand.  But  in  this  country,  where  the 
limits  of  the  "smart  set"  are  confessedly  undefined 
and  indefinable,  changing  with  the  fluctuations  of 
the  stock-market  and  the  rise  and  fall  of  real  estate, 
it  is  impossible  to  conceive  what  benefit  or  satis 
faction  reasonable  beings  can  derive  from  a  tem 
porary  enrolment  among  the  assistants  at  fashion 
able  weddings,  the  guests  at  luxurious  banquets,  or 
the  mourners  at  magnificent  funerals. 

Our  wonder  increases  wiien  we  consider  that 
there  is  hardly  a  detail  of  private  life,  from  the  cradle 
to  the  grave,  which  is  not  now  regarded  as  appropri 
ate  for  publication,  provided  only  the  newspapers 
are  induced  to  take  an  interest  in  it.  The  interest 
of  the  public  is  taken  for  granted.  Formerly  the 

78 


PUBLICOMANIA 

intrusion  of  reporters  into  such  affairs  was  resented. 
Now  it  is  their  occasional  neglect  to  intrude  which 
causes  chagrin. 

If  we  could  suppose  that  all  this  was  only  a  subtle 
and  highly  refined  mode  of  advertisement,  it  would 
be  comparatively  easy  to  account  for  it.  There 
would  be  method  in  the  madness.  But  why  in  the 
world  should  a  man  or  a  woman  care  to  advertise 
things  which  are  not  to  be  sold — a  wedding  trous 
seau,  the  decorations  of  a  bedroom,  a  dinner  to 
friends,  or  the  flowers  which  conceal  a  coffin?  We 
can  see  well  enough  why  a  dealer  in  old  silver  should 
be  pleased  at  having  his  wares  described  in  the  news 
papers.  But  what  interest  has  Mr.  Newman  Biggs 
in  having  the  public  made  aware  of  the  splendor 
and  solidity  of  his  plate? 

Of  course  one  must  recognize  that  there  is  such 
a  thing  as  public  life.  It  is  natural  and  reasonable 
that  those  who  are  engaged  in  it  should  accept  pub 
licity,  and  even  seek  it  within  proper  limits,  so  far 
as  it  may  be  a  necessary  condition  of  success  in 
their  work.  Authors  and  artists  wish  to  have  their 
books  read  and  their  pictures  looked  at.  States 
men  and  reformers  desire  to  have  their  policies 
and  principles  discussed.  Benefactors  of  mankind 

79 


CAMP-FIRES 

wish  at  least  to  have  their  schools  and  hospitals 
and  libraries  received  with  as  much  attention  as 
may  be  needed  to  make  them  useful. 

But  why  the  people  who  are  chiefly  occupied  in 
eating  and  drinking,  marrying  and  giving  in  mar 
riage,  should  wish  to  have  their  lives  turned  inside 
out  on  the  news-stands  passes  comprehension.  They 
subject  themselves  to  all  the  inconveniences  of 
royalty  (being,  as  Montaigne  says,  "in  all  the  daily 
actions  of  life  encircled  and  hemmed  in  by  an  im 
portunate  and  tedious  multitude"),  without  any  of 
its  compensations.  They  are  exposed  by  their  own 
fantastic  choice  to  what  Cowley  called  "  a  quotidian 
ague  of  frigid  impertinences,"  and  they  get  nothing 
for  it  but  the  disadvantage  of  being  talked  about. 
The  result  of  their  labors  and  sufferings  is  simply 
to  bring  them  to  the  condition  of  a  certain  Doctor 
William  Kenrick,  of  whom  old  Samuel  Johnson  said, 
"Sir,  he  is  one  of  those  who  have  made  themselves 
public  without  making  themselves  known." 

But  if  we  are  inclined  to  be  scornful  of  the  vagaries 
of  publicomania,  this  feeling  must  surely  be  softened 
into  something  milder  and  more  humane  when  we 
reflect  upon  the  unhappy  state  of  mind  to  which  it 
reduces  those  who  are  afflicted  with  it.  They  are 

80 


PUBLICOMANIA 

not  as  other  men,  to  whom  life  is  sweet  for  its  own 
sake.  The  feasts  to  which  they  are  bidden  leave 
them  hungry  unless  their  presence  is  recorded  in 
the  Daily  Eavesdropper.  They  are  restless  in  their 
summer  rest  unless  their  comings  and  goings  are 
printed  in  the  chronicle  of  fashionable  intelligence. 
Their  new  houses  do  not  please  them  if  the  news 
paper  fails  to  give  sufficient  space  to  the  announce 
ment  that  they  are  "at  home."  It  is  a  miserable 
condition,  and  one  from  which  all  obscure  and  happy 
persons  should  pray  to  be  delivered. 

There  is,  however,  consolation  for  true  lovers  of 
humanity  in  the  thought  that  the  number  of  people 
who  are  afflicted  with  this  insanity  in  an  incurable 
form  is  comparatively  small.  They  make  a  great 
noise,  like  Edmund  Burke's  company  of  vociferous 
grasshoppers  under  a  leaf  in  the  field  where  a  hun 
dred  cattle  are  quietly  feeding;  but,  after  all,  the 
great  silent  classes  are  in  the  majority.  The  com 
mon  sense  of  mankind  agrees  with  the  poet  Horace 
in  his  praise  of  the  joys  of  retirement: 

"Secretum  tier,  etfallentis  semita  vita." 

One  of  the  best  antidotes  and  cures  of  the  craze 
for  publicity  is  a  love  of  poetry  and  of  the  things 

81 


CAMP-FIRES 

that  belong  to  poetry — the  beauty  of  nature,  the 
sweetness  and  splendor  of  the  common  human  af 
fections,  and  those  high  thoughts  and  unselfish 
aspirations  which  are  the  enduring  treasures  of  the 
soul. 

It  is  good  to  remember  that  the  finest  and  most 
beautiful  things  that  can  ever  come  to  us  cannot 
possibly  be  news  to  the  public.  It  is  good  to  find 
the  zest  of  life  in  that  part  of  it  which  does  not  need, 
and  will  not  bear,  to  be  advertised.  It  is  good  to 
talk  with  our  friends,  knowing  that  they  will  not 
report  us;  and  to  play  with  the  children,  knowing 
that  no  one  is  looking  at  us;  and  to  eat  our  meat 
with  gladness  and  singleness  of  heart.  It  is  good 
to  recognize  that  the  object  of  all  true  civilization 
is  that  a  man's  house,  rich  or  poor,  shall  be  his  castle, 
and  not  his  dime  museum.  It  is  good  to  enter  into 
the  spirit  of  Wordsworth's  noble  sonnet,  and,  turn 
ing  back  to  "the  good  old  cause,"  thank  God  for 
those  safeguards  of  the  private  life  which  still  pre 
serve  in  many  homes 

"Our  peace,  our  fearful  innocence, 
And  pure  religion  breathing  household  laws." 


82 


VII 
MOVING    DAY 

LiONG  ago  in  Brooklyn, — in  the  consulship  of 
Plancus,  when  Fernando  Wood  was  Tammany 
Mayor  of  New  York,  and  the  irrepressible  effer 
vescence  of  the  Fenians  bubbled  over  in  antidraft 
riots, — in  that  rolled-golden  age,  May  Day  was 
"Moving  Day." 

Beautiful  Brooklyn,  with  breezy  Heights  over 
looking  the  turbulent  tides  of  East  River,  and  the 
round  green  patch  of  Governor's  Island,  and  the 
long  low  metropolis  of  Manhattan,  and  the  hills 
of  New  Jersey  and  Staten  Island  beyond  the  busy 
harbor!  What  a  broad  and  noble  outlook,  what 
a  rural  self-complacent  charm  was  thine,  O  city 
of  churches,  "all  unravaged  by  the  fierce  intellec 
tual  life  of  the  century,"  wrapped  in  New  England 
traditions  and  based  on  a  solid  Dutch  financial 
foundation ! 

Beecher  and  Storrs  were  thine,  Jachin  and  Boaz, 
pillars  of  the  oratorical  Temple, — and,  Lord,  how 
they  hated  each  other!  Walt  Whitman  also  was 
thine,  the  insurgent  rhapsodical  poet, — but  thou 

83 


CAMP-FIRES 

knewest  him  not  because  he  was  flannel-shirted. 
Placid  and  prim  were  thy  streets,  and  thy  spirit 
was  self-contented,  sure  that  the  ultimate  truth 
and  the  final  social  form  were  embodied  in  Brooklyn. 

(Reader,  I  am  afraid  that  these  paragraphs,  if 
you  follow  the  punctuation,  may  seem  like  un- 
capitalized  vers  libre.  Let  us  get  back  to  honest 
prose.) 

May  the  first,  in  the  days  which  I  recall,  was 
the  time  appointed  for  the  migration  of  households. 

It  was  not  a  movable  feast,  it  was  a  fixed  feast 
of  movables. 

The  little  houses  poured  forth  their  accumulated 
treasures  and  rubbish  to  be  conveyed  to  other  little 
houses.  "Apartments"  were  unknown,  but  tene 
ments  had  begun  to  exist.  Neither  the  origin  nor 
the  destination  made  any  difference.  The  point 
was  that  you  had  to  move  if  your  lease  was  up; 
and  your  goods  and  chattels  had  to  move  with  you. 

Great  was  the  disclosure,  on  that  day,  of  the  stuff 
that  had  been  accumulated.  The  discreet,  gigantic 
moving-van  had  not  yet  been  invented.  Every 
thing  must  be  carried  in  more  or  less  open  carts 
and  wagons.  The  ramshackle,  the  unnecessary, 
the  futile,  in  the  household  gear,  was  inevitably 

84 


MOVING    DAY 

betrayed.  Moving  Day  was  more  or  less  a  day 
of  confession  and  repentance. 

Even  solid  and  useful  articles  of  furniture, — sofas 
of  age  if  not  of  antiquity,  armchairs  and  rockers, 
centre-tables  and  dinner-tables,  double  bedsteads 
and  writing-desks, — have  a  forlorn,  disreputable  air 
when  they  are  turned  upside  down.  Their  legs 
project  helplessly.  They  look  inebriate.  Their 
accustomed  use,  the  dignity  of  their  position,  the 
softening  and  concealing  aid  of  lambrequins  and 
portieres,  antimacassars  and  footstools,  fringed 
lamp-shades  and  mantel  ornaments, — all  the  para 
phernalia  of  their  domestic  state  are  stripped  away 
from  them.  In  the  language  of  the  prophets,  "  their 
nakedness  is  uncovered."  The  broken  leg,  the 
cracked  foot-board,  the  scratched  surface,  the  worn 
covering,  the  huge  rent  and  the  broken  spring  under 
neath  the  corner  of  the  parlor  sofa, — all  are  bared 
to  the  cold  light  of  day  and  the  unsympathetic  com 
ment  of  the  casual  passer-by. 

Worst  of  all  is  the  state  of  the  enormous,  un 
wieldy,  beloved,  square  piano.  For  this,  usually, 
a  separate  dray  and  special  movers  are  necessary, — 
men  of  rugged  aspect  and  profane  speech,  men  who 
"have  no  music  in  their  souls,"  who  care  not  for 

85 


CAMP-FIRES 

the  sweet  harmonies  evoked  from  that  gigantic 
rosewood  box  when  Amelia  played  "The  Wakening 
of  the  Lion,"  or  "The  Maiden's  Prayer,"  or 
"  Juanita,"  and  eager  swains  stood  near  her  to  turn 
the  leaves.  The  melodious  monster  now  lies  prone 
like  a  stricken  hippopotamus:  its  huge  carved  and 
convoluted  legs  are  dismembered.  Beside  it  in  the 
dray  reposes  its  faithful  little  satellite,  the  piano- 
stool,  with  feet  uplifted  as  if  in  mute  appeal. 

Among  the  disjecta  membra  were  manv  things 
that  in  later  times  will  rarely  be  seen,  unless  a  place 
is  found  for  them  in  the  museums  of  antiquity  where 
spinning-wheels  and  warming-pans  are  assembled. 
There  were  the  long  tin  bathtubs,  painted  green 
without  and  white  within,  and  their  little  round 
brothers,  the  foot-tubs  of  like  complexion.  There 
were  enclosed  wash-stands,  with  cupboards  beneath, 
where  articles  of  domestic  virtue  could  be  concealed, 
and  with  rods  above,  on  which  embroidered 
"splashers"  portraying  one-legged  storks  could  be 
displayed.  There  were  portentous  parlor-lamps 
on  lofty  brass  pedestals,  and  curious  candelabra 
adorned  with  prismatic  glass  pendants.  All  these, 
and  other  things  of  like  nature,  modern  plumbing 
and  gas-fitting  and  electric  wiring  have  consigned 

86 


MOVING    DAY 

to  the  species  of  creatures  extinct  or  soon  to  be  ex 
tinguished.  But  for  the  time  being  they  had  their 
place  with  the  fearfully  and  wonderfully  made 
"chromes,"  and  the  Rogers  clay-statuettes,  and 
the  red-plush  family  albums, — among  the  impedi 
menta  which  the  mid- Victorian  household  chose 
to  encumber  itself  on  the  pilgrimage  of  life. 

Moving  Day  brought  them  all  out.  To  us  chil 
dren,  when  it  struck  our  own  family,  it  was  a  time 
of  excitement,  and  of  apprehension  lest  our  own 
particular  treasurable  rubbish  should  be  forgotten 
or  broken.  But  when  it  struck  other  families,  we 
found  it  a  time  of  curiosity  and  amusement.  We 
never  thought  of  questioning  its  reason  or  its  neces 
sity.  To  us  it  seemed  like  something  between  a 
joke  and  a  law  of  nature. 

Since  then  I  have  tried  to  discover,  in  a  mildly 
historical  spirit,  the  connection  between  this  feast 
of  movables  and  the  first  day  of  May, — a  point  of 
time  more  naturally  associated  with  outdoor  sports 
and  pastimes  in  the  joyousness  of  returning  spring. 

The  dull,  obvious,  logical  answer  to  these  in 
quiries  would  be  that  since  leases  were  made  and 
expired  "as  of  May  first,"  that  was  inevitably  the 
day  to  move  if  the  lease  was  not  renewed.  But 

87 


CAMP-FIRES 

the  deeper  question  still  remains:  why  did  the  leases 
fix  thai  day  f 

Washington  Irving,  in  his  "Knickerbocker  His 
tory  of  New  York,"  professes  to  give  an  exact  his 
torical  explanation.  It  was  on  the  first  of  May, 
says  he,  that  the  original  Dutch  settlers  of  the  New 
Netherlands  removed  from  their  first  establish 
ment  on  the  marshy  lands  of  Communipaw,  west 
of  the  Hudson,  to  the  more  salubrious  and  pleasant 
island  of  Mannahatta. 

"Houses  were  turned  inside  out,  and  stripped  of 
all  the  venerable  furniture  which  had  come  from 
Holland.  .  .  .  By  degrees  a  fleet  of  boats  and 
canoes  were  piled  up  with  all  kinds  of  household 
articles;  ponderous  tables;  chests  of  drawers  re 
splendent  with  brass  ornaments;  quaint  corner 
cupboards;  beds  and  bedsteads;  with  any  quantity 
of  pots,  kettles,  frying-pans  and  Dutch  ovens.  In 
each  boat  embarked  a  whole  family,  from  the  ro 
bustious  burgher  down  to  the  cats  and  dogs  and 
little  negroes.  .  .  .  This  memorable  migration  took 
place  on  the  first  of  May,  and  was  long  cited  in 
tradition  as  the  grand  moving.  The  anniversary  of 
it  was  piously  observed  among  the  'sons  of  the  Pil 
grims  of  Communipaw,'  by  turning  their  houses 


MOVING    DAY 

topsyturvy  and  carrying  all  the  furniture  through 
the  streets,  in  emblem  of  the  swarming  of  the  parent 
hive;  and  this  is  the  real  origin  of  the  universal 
agitation  and  'moving*  by  which  this  most  rest 
less  of  cities  is  literally  turned  out  of  doors  on  every 
May-day." 

Graphic  and  humorous  explanation!  But  Pro 
fessor  Scheie  de  Vere,  of  the  University  of  Virginia, 
who  quoted  it  in  his  very  entertaining  book  "Amer 
icanisms"  (1871),  was  not  entirely  satisfied  with  it. 
"The  custom,"  says  he,  "is  older  than  the  ancient 
settlement  called  Communipaw.  The  Dutch  settlers 
evidently  brought  it  with  them  from  their  trans 
atlantic  home,  and  to  this  day,  in  Bruges  and  its 
neighborhood,  in  Verviers  and  many  other  parts 
of  Belgium  and  Holland,  the  first  of  May  continues 
;o  be  the  general  day  of  moving." 

No  doubt  the  professor  was  right.  I  have  seen 
something  of  the  kind  quite  recently  in  the  Dutch 
cities.  And  no  doubt  when  this  essay  has  been 
printed  and  read  in  various  regions,  letters  will 
come,  (to  my  delight,)  from  friendly  correspondents, 
pointing  out  that  the  custom  of  Moving  Day  was 
mot  confined  to  the  districts  around  New  York, 
and  that  it  is  altogether  too  narrow  to  ascribe  it 

89 


CAMP-FIRES 

to  a  purely  Netherlandish  origin.  Right  you  are, 
friend.  Granted  beforehand!  The  origin  lies  in 
the  universal  heart  of  humanity,  and  in  the  laws 
of  nature. 

Man  is  a  mover.     Spring  is  the  time  when  he 
feels  it. 

Since  Abraham  went  down  at  the  divine  call 
from  Haran  to  Canaan,  (but  Terah  stayed  in  Haran 
because  he  liked  it  better;)  since  the  pious  ^Eneas 
took  old  father  Anchises  out  of  burning  Troy  on 
his  back  and  set  sail  for  Italy;  since  the  Longbeards 
came  into  Lombardy,  and  the  Huns  into  Hungary, 
and  the  Romans,  Danes,  Normans,  and  others  into 
Great  Britain  to  make  up  the  far-famed  "Anglo- 
Saxon"  race;  since  the  Pilgrims,  Puritans,  Cava 
liers,  Huguenots,  Dutchmen  and  other  folks  crossed 
the  ocean  with  their  household  gear  to  occupy  new 
habitations  in  America;  since  a  time  when  the 
memory  of  man  runneth  not  to  the  contrary,  there 
has  been  a  terrible  amount  of  moving  in  the  world. 
It  seems  like  a  nervous  habit.  And  I  will  wager 
that  when  it  was  not  otherwise  constrained  by  cir 
cumstances  it  has  usually  shown  itself  most  strongly 
in  the  vernal  season, — that  is,  in  the  north  t( 
perate  zone,  somewhere  about  May  first. 

90 


MOVING    DAY 

Understand,  I  am  not  now  referring  to  nomads 
and  their  vagrant  tribes.  They  are  people  whose 
only  idea  of  permanence  is  a  ceaseless  wandering. 
But  the  folks  of  whom  I  speak  are  house-builders 
and  home-lovers.  They  want  a  roof,  and  a  hearth 
stone  or  some  kind  of  a  substitute.  But  they  are 
unwilling  to  be  bound  to  it,  or  perhaps  they  are 
unable  to  hold  on  to  it,  indefinitely. 

Sometimes  they  are  forced  out,  with  bitter  sor 
row,  by  the  relentless  hand  of  avarice,  or  by  the 
bloody  fist  of  war.  There  is  no  sight  more  pitiful 
than  an  evicted  family,  unless  it  be  a  family  in 
flight  before  a  cruel  and  lustful  conqueror, — such 
as  I  have  seen  by  thousands  upon  the  roads  of 
France  and  Belgium  in  the  late  world-war. 

But  more  often  these  migrations,  in  peaceful 
times,  are  the  result  of  altered  conditions  in  industry 
and  trade;  or  of  a  desire  for  an  improved  situation, 
or  a  finer  climate,  or  a  more  convenient  dwelling; 
or  perhaps  merely  of  a  subconscious  wish  for  a 
change,  in  the  hope  that  it  will  mean  a  betterment. 

Partially  civilized  man,  if  we  consider  him  in 
the  light  of  self-knowledge,  is  evidently  a  home- 
making  creature  with  migratory  instincts. 

I  admit  that  there  are  exceptions,  or,  to  be  more 
91 


CAMP-FIRES 

exact,  cases  in  which  the  home-keeping  affection 
outweighs  and  overmasters  the  wandering  impulse. 
That  is  my  own  case,  though  I  have  come  to  it  late 
in  life.  I  like  my  old  camp  of  Avalon,  with  its  big 
trees,  and  the  marble  bird-bath  in  the  garden,  and 
the  tall  pillars  of  the  verandahs.  I  don't  want  to 
leave  it  until  I  have  to. 

There  are  many  farms,  and  mansions,  and  cas 
tles,  in  various  parts  of  the  world,  which  have  been 
in  the  possession  of  the  same  family  for  several 
generations.  Even  in  the  cities  there  are  real-estate 
holdings  which  have  passed  from  grandfather  to 
grandson,  with  their  "unearned  increment."  Yet 
the  Astors  do  not  live  where  they  used  to  live; 
and  the  Croyes,  who  claim  to  be  the  most  ancient 
princely  house  of  the  world,  cannot  afford  to  in 
habit  their  castles  without  American  subsidy.  The 
Hohenzollerns  and  the  Hapsburgs  have  had  a  no 
torious  moving.  But  I  fancy  they  sometimes  hanker 
for  their  former  dwellings. 

At  a  banquet  in  New  York  or  Chicago  or  Los 
Angeles  or  San  Francisco,  how  many  men  do  you 
meet  who  were  born  in  those  cities?     At  a  mass- 
meeting  how  many  of  the  shouters  can  say 
"My  foot  is  on  my  native  heath"? 


MOVING    DAY 

If  we  could  have  a  plebiscite  of  the  world  on  the 
proposition:  We  claim  the  right  to  stay  where  we 
are  and  we  promise  never  to  move  :  how  many  af 
firmative  votes  do  you  suppose  you  would  get? 
Would  it  make  any  difference  whether  people  were 
living  in  private  homes  or  socialistic  phalansteries? 
Would  not  every  individual  regard  "an  habitation 
enforced"  as  a  kind  of  prison? 

How  many  times  have  you  moved,  reader?  For 
myself,  including  childhood,  the  number  runs  up 
to  ten  times,  not  counting  a  half-dozen  summer 
cottages  in  which  my  family  has  been  installed, 
and  a  villa  in  Switzerland,  a  house  in  Paris,  a  hut 
in  Norway,  and  a  mansion  in  The  Hague.  None 
of  them  has  made  much  difference  in  the  real  values 
of  life.  Things  look  rather  settled  for  me  now,  with 
a  winter  camp  in  New  Jersey  and  a  summer  shack 
on  the  Maine  coast.  In  both  of  these  temporary 
homes  work  is  pleasant,  and  in  either  of  them  I 
should  be  happy  to  labor  through  to  the  end  of  the 
job.  But  I  will  not  accept  a  guaranty  of  that  de 
sired  fate  on  condition  of  a  pledge  to  undertake  no 
more  travels,  no  more  adventures. 

I  have  been  thinking  of  the  "moving"  episodes 
some  of  the  writers  whom  I  love  most  to  read. 
93 


CAMP-FIRES 

Shakespeare,  after  many  mutations,  settled  down 
as  a  rich  man  in  the  best  house  at  Stratford-on- 
Avon;  but  he  had  to  leave  it  in  less  than  five  years. 
Milton  was  forced  to  many  changes  of  residence, 
and  at  the  end  he  was  a  poor  man,  and  cared  not 
much  where  he  lived,  provided  he  could  have  music 
and  the  joy  of  inward  vision.  Burns  was  an  in 
spired  migratory  crofter;  Wordsworth,  a  footpath 
adventurer,  who  nested  finally  at  Rydal  Mount. 
Charles  Lamb  was  never  driven  from  London  and 
the  "sweet  security"  of  city  streets,  but  he  com 
plained  charmingly  of  the  inconvenience  of  moving 
his  abode  within  those  precincts.  Tennyson  in 
youth  moved  often,  but  when  the  time  came  he 
fixed  his  winter  home  at  Farringf  ord  and  his  summer 
home  at  Aldworth.  Browning  belonged  to  London 
and  to  Italy,  and  moved  around  as  it  pleased  him, 
always  pursuing  his  dramatic  quest  of  the  individual 
soul.  Dickens  and  Thackeray  were  Londoners  in 
dubitable,  but  they  shifted  residences  often  within 
their  city,  and  they  travelled  abroad,  and  they 
searched  for  a  general  human  view  of  life.  Steven 
son  was  by  choice  and  by  necessity  an  adventurer; 
how  many  "movings"  he  had  between  Edinburgh 
and  Samoa  I  know  not;  but  through  them  all  he 

94 


MOVING    DAY 

followed  his  dream  of  telling  vivid  stories  of  life, 
and  of  making  true  comments  upon  it  in  his  essays. 
Kipling  is  still  with  us  in  the  modern  "movies," 
so  we  may  not  speak  of  him  without  reserve.  We 
know  that  he  has  had  habitations  in  India,  in  Ver 
mont,  and  in  Sussex,  and  that  whether  he  lives  in 
Bombay  or  in  Burwash  he  keeps  with  him  the  same 
keen  vision,  straight  word,  and  what  Mrs.  Gerould 
calls  his  "remarkable  Tightness."  But,  if  I  mistake 
not,  his  movings  have  carried  him  far  beyond  his 
first  "Plain  Tales  from  the  Hills." 

After  all,  reader,  be  we  rich  or  poor,  learned  or 
unlearned,  is  not  Moving  Day  marked  in  all  our 
calendars?  Is  it  not  a  symbol  of  the  unexempt 
condition  of  our  mortal  pilgrimage? 

From  house  to  house  we  move;  but  that  sig 
nifies  little,  if  we  do  not  overburden  ourselves  with 
rubbish. 

From  youth  to  age  we  move;  but  that  is  not  fatal 
if  we  do  not  overload  ourselves  with  prejudices. 

From  opinion  to  opinion  we  move;  but  that  is 
natural  if  we  are  not  forced  to  do  it  in  haste.  The 
man  who  thinks  when  old  precisely  the  same  on 
all  points  as  he  thought  when  young,  is  not  a  con 
servative.  He  is  an  obstacle. 

95 


CAMP-FIRES 

I  recall  what  Stevenson  says  in  one  of  his  essays: 
"I  look  back  to  the  time  when  I  was  a  Socialist 
with  something  like  regret.  I  have  convinced  my 
self  (for  the  moment)  that  we  had  better  leave  these 
great  changes  to  what  we  call  great  blind  forces; 
their  blindness  being  so  much  more  perspicacious 
than  the  little,  peering,  partial  eyesight  of  men. 
I  seem  to  see  that  my  own  scheme  would  not 
answer;  and  all  the  other  schemes  I  have  ever 
heard  propounded  would  depress  some  elements  of 
goodness  just  as  much  as  they  would  encourage 
others." 

Schemes,  theories,  systems  and  panaceas  are  the 
lambrequins  and  antimacassars  of  the  mental  life, 
— things  to  be  left  behind  on  Moving  Day.  They 
will  not  fit  the  new  house.  Only  the  essentials  are 
worth  transportation. 

For  my  part,  there  are  just  three  things  that 
seem  worth  carrying  through  all  earthly  migrations 
of  the  spirit.  First,  the  Ten  Commandments. 
Second,  the  Golden  Rule.  Third,  the  "faithful 
saying,  and  worthy  of  all  acceptation,  that  Christ 
Jesus  came  into  the  world  to  save  sinners." 

Among  the  typically  transient  dwellings  of  the 
world  are  the  parsonage,  the  residence  of  the  mili- 

96 


MOVING    DAY 

tary  or  naval  commandant,  and  the  White  House 
at  Washington. 

Do  you  remember  the  inscription  that  George 
Herbert  wrote  for  the  mantelpiece  of  his  vicarage 
in  Bemerton  ? 

"TO  MY  SUCCESSOR 

"If  thou  chance  for  to  find 
A  new  house  to  thy  mind, 
And  built  without  thy  cost; 
Be  good  to  the  poor, 
As  God  gives  thee  store, 
And  then  my  labor's  not  lost." 

But  the  symbol  of  Moving  Day  runs  far  beyond 
the  earthly  mutations  of  dwelling,  and  the  changes 
of  opinion  and  theory,  to  which  we  are  all  subject. 
It  reminds  us  of  the  great  migration  from  the  known 
to  the  unknown,  which  we  call  death. 

Here  is  something  universal,  inevitable,  and  there 
fore  worth  thinking  about.  This  is  Moving  Day, 
indeed.  Not  one  of  us  can  get  away  from  it  when 
it  comes. 

Yet  I  have  no  sympathy  with  those  who  would 
make  the  fact  of  death  the  controlling  factor  of 
life.  The  flaming  inscriptions  on  the  bill-boards, 
"Prepare  to  meet  thy  God,*'  and  the  exhortations 

97 


CAMP-FIRES 

of  the  preachers,  "Live  to-day  as  if  you  were  to 
die  to-morrow,"  leave  me  cold.  The  meeting,  (I 
say  it  reverently,)  has  already  taken  place.  I  do 
not  expect  to  die  to-morrow.  I  want  to  take  life 
as  it  comes, — as  bravely,  as  decently,  as  cheerfully 
as  possible.  There  are  lots  of  innocent,  interesting, 
and  possibly  useful  things  which  I  propose  doing 
to-day,  which  I  should  probably  not  do  if  I  thought 
that  I  had  to  die  to-morrow. 

The  beloved  ones,  the  friends,  who  have  moved 
before  me  into  the  unknown  world,  I  believe  are 
still  living.  I  have  no  need  of  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  nor 
of  the  excessively  Belgian  Shakespeare,  Maeter 
linck,  to  assure  me  of  their  existence.  I  rely  upon 
a  better  Teacher. 

Nor  do  I  think  that  my  invisible  friends  would 
choose  to  speak  to  me  through  persons, — mediums, 
— with  whom  they  would  have  had  no  sympathy 
nor  intercourse  in  mortal  life.  Nor  would  they  use 
a  patented  Ouija  board  for  their  communications. 
They  would  speak  to  me  directly, — my  father,  my 
dear  daughter  Dorothea, — and  I  believe  they  have 
done  so,  whether  in  the  body  or  out  of  the  body, 
I  know  not.  But  these  are  "things  which  it  is  not 
lawful  for  a  man  to  utter." 

98 


MOVING    DAY 

Meanwhile  let  us  take  our  earthly  moving  days 
as  best  we  can.  And  for  the  last  migration  a  word 
from  Joseph  Beaumont,  written  three  centuries 
ago,  is  still  timely: 

"Home  is  everywhere  to  thee 
Who  canst  thine  own  dwelling  be; 
Yea,  tho'  ruthless  Death  assail  thee, 
Still  thy  lodging  will  not  fail  thee: 
Still  thy  Soul's  thine  own;  and  she 
To  an  House  removed  shall  be; 
An  eternal  House  above, 
Walled,  and  roofed,  and  paved  with  Love. 
There  shall  these  mud-walls  of  thine, 
Gallantly  repaired,  out-shine 
Mortal  stars; — no  stars  shall  be 
In  that  Heaven  but  such  as  Thee." 


VIII 

FIRELIGHT    VIEWS 

CIVILIZATION  began  with  a  wood-fire. 

'Tis  the  coal-fire  that  has  carried  it  on, — and, 
some  think,  too  far. 

The  warmth  diffused  by  burning  wood  is  assuredly 
the  oldest  of  "creature  comforts."  Doubtless  Adam 
and  Eve  knew  the  joy  of  it  when  they  started  from 
Eden  on  the  long  adventure.  The  nights  are  some 
times  biting  cold  in  Mesopotamia,  however  hot  the 
days,  and  the  gentle  calefaction  of  a  few  blazing 
sticks  must  have  been  grateful  to  the  shivering 
pair, — especially  in  the  fig-leafy  period  of  their 
attire,  before  they  had  received  the  heavenly  gift 
of  fur  coats. 

Certainly  their  great-grandson  Jubal,  "the  father 
of  all  such  as  handle  the  harp  and  the  organ,"  and 
his  half-brother  Tubal-Cain,  "the  instructer  of 
every  artificer  in  brass  and  iron,"  had  fires  of  wood, 
perhaps  also  of  charcoal,  for  their  work.  And  so, 
or  in  some  such  fashion,  all  human  arts  and  crafts, 
inventions  and  contrivances,  have  sprung  from  the 
red  seed  of  fire,  planted  in  the  bodies  of  trees,  the 
ancient  friends  of  man. 

100 


FIRELIGHT    VIEWS 

Greek  poetry  tells  the  same  tale  otherwise. 
Prometheus,  the  foresighted,  stole  a  spark  from 
the  hearth  of  the  great  hall  of  Olympus,  and  brought 
it  to  earth  hidden  in  a  stalk  of  fennel.  For  this  the 
jealous  Olympians  were  enraged  at  him,  and  con 
demned  him  to  undying  torture. 

But  the  tribes  of  the  Orient  say  that  the  benev 
olent  fire-thief  was  a  bird;  and  the  North  American 
Indians  hold  that  it  was  a  coyote, — a  beast  which 
has  kept  the  trick  of  theft,  without  a  trace  of  benevo 
lence. 

Tell  the  tale  as  you  will,  the  meaning  is  identical. 
It  was  the  mastery  of  fire  that  gave  man  the  ad 
vantage  over  the  lower  animals  in  all  material  things. 
It  built  Memphis,  Nineveh,  Babylon,  Jerusalem, 
Athens,  Rome,  and  many  other  cities  of  renown. 
But  in  the  beginning,  and  through  innumerable 
centuries  thereafter,  it  was  only  and  always  wood- 
fire. 

Possibly,  now  and  then  petroleum  was  added 
(after  the  manner  of  the  rash  and  indolent  house 
maid)  to  hasten  and  augment  the  blaze.  Does  not 
Job,  that  early  capitalist,  boast  that  "the  rocks 
poured  me  out  rivers  of  oil "  ? 

But  the  amorphous  mineral,  coal, — the  mummy 
101 


CAMP-FIRES 

of  wood, — the  latent  heat  of  fallen  forests  laid  up  in 
cold  storage  for  our  use, — who  can  tell  when  it  was 
first  discovered  ?  At  what  time  and  by  what  chance, 
happy  or  unhappy,  did  man  find  out  that  those 
dusky  rocks  would  burn  ? 

Was  it  when  some  cave-dweller  made  his  fire 
place  on  a  vein  of  lignite  passing  through  the  floor 
of  his  den,  and  suddenly  saw  it  all  aglow?  Was  it 
when  some  primitive  cottager  took  a  fancy  to  those 
smooth  blocks  of  black  stone  for  the  building  of 
his  hearth,  and  found  that  his  fire  laid  hold  upon 
its  foundations?  In  cave  or  cottage,  that  must 
have  been  a  surprise.  No  doubt  the  news  of  it 
spread  quickly  as  a  dire  portent.  Perhaps  the 
legends  of  fire-and-smoke-breathing  dragons,  in 
habiting  caverns  among  the  hills,  had  their  source 
in  some  such  accident. 

Be  that  as  it  may,  it  is  certain  that  the  use  of 
coal  for  heating  purposes  was  late  to  begin  and 
slow  to  progress.  The  British  apparently  led  the 
way,  somewhere  in  the  twelfth  century,  and  by 
the  sixteenth  century  the  practice  had  so  increased 
in  London  that  the  Brewers  Company  petitioned 
Queen  Elizabeth  to  forbid  it,  alleging  "Hersealfe 
greatley  greved  and  anoyed  with  the  taste  and 
102 


FIRELIGHT    VIEWS 

smoke  of  the  sea  cooles."  In  Paris  it  went  the  same 
way.  The  dainty  Parisians  maintained  that  the 
burning  of  coal  poisoned  the  air,  dirtied  the  wash, 
injured  the  lungs,  and  spoiled  the  complexion  of 
the  ladies.  Horrible !  This  barbarous  practice 
must  terminate  itself.  Accordingly  it  was  forbidden 
in  1714,  and  again  as  late  as  1769. 

Yet  somehow  or  other  it  continued,  and  grew, 
and  spread  upon  the  face  of  earth,  and  diffused  its 
sulphurous  fumes  in  air,  piling  above  our  monstrous 
cities  what  Ruskin  has  called  the  "storm-cloud  of 
the  nineteenth  century."  Tall  chimneys,  vomiting 
gloom,  broke  the  sky-line.  Forges  blazed  and  flared. 
Factories  sprang  like  exhalations  from  the  ground. 
Railway-trains  ran  roaring  up  and  down  the  con 
tinents.  Steamships  wove  their  spider-web  of  cross 
ing  lines  and  lanes  over  the  sea.  Man's  power  to 
make  things  and  to  move  things  increased  tenfold, 
a  hundredfold,  a  thousandfold.  And  of  this  new 
world, — civilized,  we  call  it, — coal-fire  is  king. 

For  this  reason,  some  say,  Germany  attacked 
France  in  1870  to  gain  possession  of  the  coal-fields 
of  Lorraine,  and  again  in  1914  to  grab  the  Briey 
Basin  and  the  mines  around  Lens.  For  this  reason, 
some  say,  the  empire  of  Britain  is  founded  on  a 
103 


CAMP-FIRES 

coal-pit,  and  when  that  is  exhausted  it  will  fall. 
For  this  reason,  some  say,  the  present  prosperity 
of  mankind  is  illusory  and  transient,  and  some  coal- 
less  day  we  shall  all  freeze  or  starve  to  death.  An 
imitator  of  Rudyard  Kipling  puts  it  thus: 

When  the  ultimate  coal-mine  is  empty  and  the  miners' 
last  labor  is  done, 

When  the  pick  and  the  drill  are  silent  and  the  furnaces 
die,  one  by  one, 

Then  the  trains  will  stall  on  the  railway,  and  the  fac 
tories  all  grow  dumb, 

And  shivering  man  will  cover  his  head  and  wait  for  The 

End  to  come. 

V^ 

Perhaps, — perhaps!  Yet  the  prophecy  does  not 
curdle  my  marrow.  As  the  Kingship  of  Coal  was 
not  primeval,  so  its  perpetuity  is  not  assured.  Nor 
would  the  dethronement  of  the  present  monarch 
necessarily  be  final  and  fatal.  A  competent  Regent 
has  been  discovered  in  Oil.  Behind  him,  like  a 
sturdy  heir-apparent,  we  see  the  rising  head  of 
Electric  Power.  In  the  dim  distance  we  discern 
various  heirs  presumptive, — Sun-heat  yet  unex- 
ploited;  Tide-force  yet  unharnessed.  That  em 
bryonic  wonder,  of  whom  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  tells 
us,  Atomic  Explosion,  still  slumbers  in  the  womb 
104 


FIRELIGHT    VIEWS 

of  nature,  waiting  the  day  of  delivery.  Who  knows 
but  what  The  Coming  Man,  having  taken  the  need 
ful  precautions,  may  gently  insert  a  spoonful  of 
atoms  into  a  safety-exploder  and  generate  power 
enough  to  run  the  world's  machines  for  a  year? 

Meantime  there  is  no  present  reason,  moral  or 
economic,  why  we  should  not  come  back,  after  our 
day's  work,  and  sit  down  beside  the  old  wood-fire, 
and  get  the  good  of  it. 

Once  a  power,  it  is  still  a  friend.  With  a  mod 
erate  and  variable  heat,  it  gives  out  light  and  cheer. 
It  talks  a  little,  and  sings  a  little,  and  makes  a  soli 
tary  room  less  lonely.  Old-fashioned  it  certainly 
is;  wasteful  it  may  be, — extravagant,  if  you  like 
to  call  it  so,  with  fire-wood  at  its  present  price;  but 
for  me  it  answers  precisely  to  the  French  phi 
losopher's  definition  of  a  luxury, — chose  ires  neces- 
saire. 

Indeed  it  is  the  last  of  the  luxuries  that  I  would 
forego  under  duress  of  the  High  Cost  of  Living.  If 
need  be,  as  the  poet  says, 

I  can  do  without  sugar  and  butter  and  eggs; 
I  can  give  up  my  carriage  and  trust  to  my  legs; 
The  dream  of  a  motor,  or  even  a  Ford 
105 


CAMP-FIRES 

I  renounce,  while  my  plumber  rolls  by  like  a  lord; 
I  can  cut  out  my  tailor,  and  wear  my  old  shoes, 
And  resign  from  the  club  to  escape  the  high  dues; 
I  abstain  from  the  movie,  the  opera,  the  play, 
The  lure  of  the  bookshop,  the  florist's  display; 
All,  aD,  I  surrender  that  Hard  Times  require; 
But  leave  me,  ah  leave  me,  my  bonny  wood-fire. 

My  fireplace  is  not  a  splendiferous  one,  with  huge, 
carven  mantel,  brought  (or  copied)  from  some  Ital 
ian  palace  or  Bavarian  castle.  I  like  not  these 
gigantic  intruders  in  modest  American  rooms.  The 
fire  smokes  or  smoulders  discouraged  in  their  cavern 
ous  depths.  A  plain,  useful  hearth,  by  preference 
of  red  bricks  or  tiles,  and  a  chimney  that  draws 
well,  are  worth  more  than  all  the  decorated  chim- 
neypieces  in  the  world. 

In  andirons  I  would  admit  a  little  fancy,  but  no 
ostentation.  Mine  are  twin  near-bronze  figures  of 
Indian  maidens  that  used  to  stand,  long  ago,  on 
top  of  the  newel-posts  at  the  foot  of  the  stairway 
in  an  ancient  New  York  hostelry.  These  I  found 
by  chance  in  a  junk-shop,  and  had  low  steel  bars 
fitted  to  them,  to  hold  the  wood.  Goldilocks  calls 
them  Pocahontas  and  Minnehaha.  They  are  not 
beautiful,  nor  ugly,  but  they  seem  to  fit  the  place, 
106 


FIRELIGHT    VIEWS 

smiling  as  they  warm  their  backs  at  the  blaze.  They 
appear  to  be  dressed,  let  me  hasten  to  say,  in 
decorous  deerskin  garments  with  fringes. 

Behind  these  proper  and  benignant  figures  the 
fire  is  kindled  every  morning  from  the  first  of  Oc 
tober  to  the  first  of  May,  and  later  if  need  be.  Is 
the  day  warm?  The  windows  are  easily  opened. 
Is  it  bitter  cold  ?  Then  pile  on  the  wood, — as  Hor 
ace  says, 

"  Dissolve  frigus,  ligna  super  foco 
Large  reponens." 

That  is,  in  modern  American,  beat  the  cold  by 
boosting  the  fire. 

Do  you  want  to  know  how  to  light  it?  I  can 
tell  you  a  trick  that  is  worth  learning  in  these  days 
of  costly  kindling. 

You  must  have  a  thick  bed  of  ashes.  This  is 
difficult  to  secure  and  protect  if  you  are  married. 
But  it  can  be  done  by  making  concessions  on  other 
points.  Now  pull  out  your  fire-dogs  a  little  and 
put  the  round  backlog  behind  them,  resting  on  the 
ashes.  Stuff  a  few  sheets  of  dry  newspaper,  (old 
copies  of  the  Social  Uplifter  are  best,)  under  its 
curving  side.  Above  this  place  just  four, — no  more, 
— sticks  of  kindling-wood,  not  horizontally,  mind 
107 


CAMP-FIRES 

you,  but  perpendicularly,  or  rather  "slantendic- 
ularly,"  leaning  against  the  backlog.  In  front  of 
this,  lying  on  the  andirons  and  close  against  the 
kindlings,  place  your  forelog.  Then  apply  the  match 
to  the  paper.  In  two  minutes  you  will  have  a  beau 
tiful  little  blaze.  Now  you  can  lay  on  your  third 
log, — but  gently,  gently, — and  your  fire  is  well 
started  for  the  day. 

Reader,  you  may  think  that  paragraph  meticulous 
and  trifling.  But  really  and  truly  it  is  an  invaluable 
guide-post.  If  you  will  follow  it,  in  a  year  it  will 
save  you  the  price  of  a  subscription  to  the  maga 
zine,  to  say  nothing  of  the  profanity  which  you 
would  have  expended  in  trying  to  light  choked  fires. 
If  your  wife  won't  let  you  have  the  bed  of  ashes, 
try  that  excellent  invention,  the  Cape  Cod  Fire 
lighter. 

Air  is  the  great  thing,  remember, — free  circula 
tion,  a  good  draft, — both  for  fire-building  and  for 
thought-kindling.  We  smother  our  poor  minds  by 
piling  on  ideas  and  theories.  We  choke  our  high- 
school  and  college  education  with  a  preposterous 
overload  of  "courses."  We  encumber  our  social 
programme  with  vast  heaps  of  universal  reform, 
and  complain  that  "we  can't  get  anything  done," 
108 


FIRELIGHT    VIEWS 

because  we  fail  in  the  fool's  effort  to  do  everything 
at  once. 

Why  try  to  do  good  things  in  a  silly  way  ?  Why 
waste  matches  by  applying  them  immediately  to 
the  backlog?  Take  the  little  sticks  first.  And 
above  all  let  the  fresh  air  of  open  discussion,  prac 
tical  experiment,  illustration,  comparison  of  ex 
periences,  criticism,  humor,  and  enthusiasm  play 
freely  through  the  fire  of  your  theories  and  plans. 

In  education,  for  example,  I  would  sweep  away 
half  of  the  "courses"  and  two-thirds  of  the  "ex 
aminations,'*  and  concentrate  attention  on  teaching 
boys  and  girls  to  use  their  powers  of  observation 
accurately,  their  powers  of  reasoning  intelligently, 
their  powers  of  imagination  and  sympathy  vividly, 
and  their  powers  of  will  sanely  and  strongly, — in 
short,  to  know  things  as  they  are,  to  conceive  them 
as  they  might  be,  and  to  help  make  them  as  they 
ought  to  be.  That  is  the  real  purpose  of  education. 
And  I  think  it  may  be  reached,  or  at  least  ap 
proached,  better  through  a  few  studies  well  chosen 
than  through  a  mass  of  studies  piled  on  at  random. 

But  these  are  only  "firelight  views/*  reader; 
they  are  not  systematic,  sharp-cut,  unalterable 
theories.  To  such  the  magical  light  of  the  dancing, 
109 


CAMP-FIRES 

flickering  flames,  the  mystical  glow  of  the  orange- 
red  embers,  are  not  favorable.  They  lend  them 
selves  rather  to  the  inspiration  of  dreams,  and  hopes, 
and  fancies.  They  are  friendly  to  memories  and 
visions,  without  which  indeed  the  journey  of  life 
would  be  dull  and  cheerless. 

Yet  I  cannot  agree  with  that  good  British  essayist, 
E.  V.  Lucas,  when  he  suggests  that  the  wood- 
fire  harmonizes  with  spiritualistic  experiments,  and 
goes  on  to  say,  "If  England  were  warmed  wholly 
by  hot-water  pipes  or  gas-stoves,  the  Society  for 
Psychical  Research  would  soon  be  dissolved."  On 
the  contrary  it  is  precisely  in  that  stale-heated, 
stuffy,  musky  atmosphere  that  mediums  flourish 
and  perform  their  most  marvellous  feats  with  their 
feet.  The  frankly  blazing  wood-fire  is  too  healthy 
for  them. 

I  have  heard  of  only  one  successful  sSance  that 
was  held  beside  an  open  hearth.  The  story  was 
told  me  by  the  Reverend  Doctor  Wonderman,  a  de 
lightful  comrade  and  a  firm  believer.  He  was  sit 
ting  with  a  mediumistic  couple,  and  they  had  pro 
duced  for  his  benefit  during  the  evening  various 
"manifestations"  of  knocks  and  scratchings  and 
movements  of  furniture.  The  "control"  was  sup- 
110 


FIRELIGHT    VIEWS 

posed  to  be  the  soul  of  a  departed  Indian  Chief, — 
Bumbagoostook,  or  some  such  name  as  that, — a 
penetrating  spirit,  but  wayward,  and  of  rude, 
boisterous  humor.  As  a  final  and  conclusive  proof 
the  Doctor  asked  that  Bumbagoostook  should  hand 
him  his  favorite  pipe,  which  was  then  lying  on  the 
mantelpiece.  Instantly  the  pipe  leaped  from  the 
shelf,  hurtled  through  the  air,  and  struck  the  good 
Doctor  violently  in  the  midriff.  Whether  he  laughed 
or  not,  I  do  not  know,  but  it  seems  to  me  likely. 
Nothing  of  that  kind  has  ever  happened  by  my 
wood-fire.  I  prefer  to  get  my  pipes  for  myself, 
rather  than  have  to  do  with  unrefined  spirits. 

Plenty  of  good  things  have  been  written  about 
wood-fires, — whole  books,  in  fact,  like  Hamilton 
Mabie's  "My  Study  Fire,"  and  Charles  Dudley 
Warner's  "Backlog  Studies."  There  are  also  little 
fragments  scattered  kere  and  there,  which  are  worth 
picking  up  and  remembering. 

Horace  has  an  excellent  bit  in  his  second  epode, 
where  he  describes  the  honest  farmer's  wife, — mod 
est,  merry,  sunburned  woman,  glad  to  play  her 
part  in  keeping  house  and  bearing  children, — who 
lays  the  dry  fagots  on  the  hearth,  ready  to  welcome 
the  homecoming  of  her  tired  husband. 
Ill 


CAMP-FIRES 

Cicero  in  his  dialogue  "De  Senectute"  gives 
graphic  picture  of  old  Manius  Curius  sitting  quietl 
by  his  country  fireside  and  refusing  the  conquere 
Samnites  who  brought  him  a  heap  of  gold.  He  sai 
that  he  did  not  think  it  as  fine  to  have  gold  as  to  b 
superior  to  those  who  had  it. 

Tibullus,  the  so-called  bucolic  poet,  breathes 
true  fireside  wish  in  his  first  elegy: 

"Let  lowly  fortune  lead  my  life 
In  quiet  ways,  remote  from  strife, 
If  only  on  this  hearth  of  mine 
A  constant  fire  may  brightly  shine." 

But  there  is  nothing  better  on  this  subject  tha 
the  lines  of  Robert  Messinger,  an  American,  wril 
ing  on  the  familiar  theme  of  "old  wine,  old  woo< 
old  books,  and  old  friends."  Here  is  the  secon 
stanza: 

"Old  wood  to  burn! 
Ay,  bring  the  hill-side  beech 
From  where  the  owlets  meet  and  screech 

And  ravens  croak; 
The  crackling  pine,  and  cedar  sweet; 
Bring  too  a  lump  of  fragrant  peat, 
Dug  'neath  the  fern; 
The  knotted  oak; 
112 


FIRELIGHT    VIEWS 

A  fagot  too,  perhap, 

Whose  bright  flame  dancing,  winking, 

Shall  light  us  at  our  drinking; 

While  the  oozing  sap 
Shall  make  sweet  music  to  our  thinking." 

At  our  place  in  Maine  I  have  always  been  able 
to  keep  the  home-fires  burning  with  white  birch 
and  dry  spruce  from  our  own  woodlands  around 
the  bungalow.  But  that  is  quite  a  different  thing 
from  feeding  the  hearth  with  fuel  from  the  eight 
acres  of  home-lot  here  in  Princeton. 

Every  now  and  then  one  of  the  trees  that  my  own 
hands  have  planted  and  tended  here  is  smitten  in  its 
lusty  youth  and  must  come  down;  and  sometimes 
there  are  deaths  among  the  older  trees,  and  they 
are  brought  to  the  funeral  pyre.  From  such  sad 
events  I  draw  what  comfort  I  can,  and  remember  by 
the  hearth  the  joy  that  the  trees  gave  while  they 
were  living. 

There  was  a  pair  of  silver  cut-leaf  birches  that 
succumbed  one  after  the  other,  to  some  mysterious 
malady;  a  massy  rock-maple  that  grew  too  great 
and  blocked  the  sunlight  from  the  windows;  a  trio 
of  tall  Norway  firs  that  died  at  the  top;  some  cherry- 
!  trees  fallen  into  barren  decrepitude,  and  mulberries 

113 


CAMP-FIRES 

rent  and  crippled  beyond  repair  by  a  beautiful, 
cruel  ice-storm.  Once  a  giant  pine-tree  was  struck 
by  lightning,  and  we  gave  him  a  splendid,  long- 
drawn  flame-burial,  with  rattling,  crackling  accom 
paniments,  like  salvoes  of  musketry  over  the  ashes 
of  a  fallen  hero.  Once  there  was  the  remnant  of  an 
ancient  orchard  that  went  the  way  of  all  wood  and 
passed  into  fire.  That  was  the  best  of  all. 

Old  apple-wood  burns  cleanly,  brightly,  serenely, 
with  a  delicate  and  spicy  fragrance.  The  flames 
bloom  softly  over  the  logs;  they  play  around  them 
and  dance  above  them  with  shifting  colors  of  canary 
yellow,  and  pale  blue,  and  saffron;  they  send  up 
wavering  pennons  of  pure  golden  light,  which  sink 
down  again  into  fringes  of  mellow  radiance.  Deeper 
and  deeper  the  transforming  element  sinks  into  the 
heart  of  the  log,  which  still  keeps  its  shape,  an  in 
candescent  round,  silvered  with  a  fine  white  ash; 
until  at  last  the  stick  breaks  and  crumbles  into 
glowing  coals,  of  a  color  which  no  words  can  de 
scribe.  It  is  like  the  petals  of  a  certain  rose,  whose 
tint  I  remember,  but  whose  name  I  have  forgotten. 
(Tell  me  its  name,  reader,  if  you  are  sending  a  letter 
this  way.)  So  the  lovely  ruins  of  the  old  apple-tree 
lie  heaped  upon  the  hearth,  and  over  them  flow 
114 


FIRELIGHT    VIEWS 

tiny  ripples  of  azure  and  mauve  and  violet  flame, 
lower  and  lower,  fainter  and  fainter,  till  all  dies 
down  into  gray,  and  the  tree  has  rendered  its  last 
offering  of  beauty  and  service  to  man. 

One  of  the  practical  merits  of  an  open  wood-fire 
is  its  convenience  for  destroying  rubbish.  Old 
pamphlets  and  letters,  dusty  manuscripts  that 
you  once  thought  would  be  worth  touching  up  for 
publication,  scraps  and  fragments  of  all  kinds  that 
have  cluttered  your  shelves  and  drawers  for  years, 
<  even  new  books  that  you  have  tried  in  vain  to  read, 
— how  easy  it  is  to  drop  them  into  the  blaze  and 
i  press  them  down  with  the  poker ! 

But  the  habit  is  a  bad  one,  for  three  reasons: 

!  first,  because  it  dishonors  the  hearth  with  black 

•  ashes;    second,  because  you  may  set  the  chimney 

*on  fire;   third,  because  you  never  can  tell  what  is 

rubbish. 

You  remember  how  King  Jehoiakim  made  a  mis 
take  in  that  respect  when  Jehudi  came  into  his  pres 
ence  to  read  from  a  little  manuscript  an  extremely 
disagreeable  prophecy  of  Jeremiah.  There  was  a 
fire  on  the  hearth  burning  before  him.  And  it  came 
to  pass,  that  when  Jehudi  had  read  three  or  four 
leaves,  he  cut  it  with  the  penknife  and  cast  it  into 
115 


CAMP-FIRES 

the  fire.  "So,"  thought  the  king,  "we  have  done 
with  that  rubbish."  But  neither  was  it  rubbish 
nor  had  he  done  with  it.  For  Jeremiah  caused  an 
other  little  roll  to  be  written  with  the  same  un 
pleasant  words  in  it,  and  there  were  added  unto 
them  many  like  words,  and  they  were  all  true,  and 
it  was  worse  for  Jehoiakim  in  the  end  than  if  he 
had  preserved  and  heeded  the  first  book. 

Many  a  man  burns  what  he  wishes  later  he  had 
kept. 

Another  use  of  a  wood-fire,  though  you  can  hardly 
call  it  a  practical  one,  is  its  power  of  begetting  fan 
tasies,  some  romantic  and  some  grotesque,  in  the 
mind  of  him  that  gazeth  into  it. 

Here  I  often  sit,  when  the  day's  task  is  done,  and 
indulge  my  vagrant  fancy  with  improbable  ad 
ventures  and  impossible  labors.  To  go  a-hunting 
in  the  Caucasus,  and  a-fishing  in  New  Zealand; 
to  complete  either  my  long-planned  book  on  "Wild 
Animals  that  Have  Refused  to  Meet  Me,"  or  that 
much-needed  treatise  on  "The  Moral  Effects  of 
Chewing  Gum";  to  get  out  a  serious  edition  of 
The  New  Republic, — think  what  it  would  mean  to 
the  world  if  that  journal,  with  all  its  natural  gifts  of 
omniscience,  omnipresence,  and  omnipotence,  only 
116 


FIRELIGHT    VIEWS 

had  the  added  grace  of  ethical  earnestness !  But 
these  are  vain  visions.  Let  us  return  to  the  realities. 

The  very  best  thing  about  a  real  wood-fire  is  its 
power  of  drawing  friends  around  it.  Here  comes 
the  new  Herodotus,  not  to  discuss  the  problems 
of  antiquity  which  he  has  already  settled,  but  to 
tell  the  most  absorbing  tales  and  anecdotes  of  the 
people  that  you  know  or  have  known,  and  to  dis 
pute  your  most  cherished  opinions  in  a  way  that 
makes  you  love  him.  Here  comes  Fra  Paolo,  the 
happy  controversialist,  ready  for  a  friendly  bicker 
on  any  subject  under  heaven,  and  full  of  projects 
for  rescuing  the  most  maligned  characters  of  his 
tory.  Here  come  the  lean  young  Literary  Rancher 
with  tales  of  the  once  wild  West,  and  the  wonderful 
Writer  of  Sad  Stories,  who  is  herself  always  cheer 
ful.  Here  come  Goldilocks  and  Brownie  to  sit  on 
the  rug,  tuck  up  their  skirts  and  toast  their  shins, 
while  they  talk  of  their  joyous  plans  and  propound 
deep  simple  questions  that  no  one  can  answer.  Here 
come  travellers  and  professors  and  poets  and  am 
bassadors,  not  reserved  and  stately,  but  thawed 
and  relaxed  to  a  delightful  companionship  by  the 
magic  of  the  wood-fire. 

Well,  they  have  all  gone  their  way  now,  and  while 
117 


CAMP-FIRES 

the  logs  burn  down,  I  sit  alone  in  the  book-room, 
pencilling  these  lines.  But  you,  reader, — if  your 
eyes  glance  over  them  at  all,  it  will  be  in  the  happy 
season  when  your  fire  is  kindled  out-of-doors.  In 
the  deep,  green  woods,  on  the  mountainside,  by 
the  seashore,  on  the  bank  of  some  quiet  lake  or 
flowing  stream; — "the  camp-fire,  the  cooking-fire, 
the  smudge-fire,  the  little  friendship-fire"; — but 
that  is  an  old  story,  of  which  I  have  written  in  an 
other  book.  I  will  not  repeat  it  now,  though  the 
theme  is  one  upon  which  I  could  play  new  varia 
tions  forever.  Let  me  rather  wish  you  good  luck 
in  the  lighting  of  your  fire  in  the  open,  and  leave 
with  you  a  saying  from  old  Plutarch. 

He  says  (in  his  Symposiacs,  Question  IV,)  that 
when  his  guests  have  departed  he  would  leave  one 
flame  burning  as  a  symbol  of  his  reverence  for  fire. 
No  other  thing  is  so  like  a  creature  alive.  It  is 
moved  and  nourished  from  within;  and  by  its 
brightness,  like  the  soul,  reveals  and  illuminates 
things  around  it;  and  even  in  dying  resembles  a 
vital  principle,  sighing  and  trembling  ere  it  departs. 

This,  then,  is  what  the  Greek  philosopher  has  to 
say  about  the  firelight.  But  he  says  it,  mark  you, 
only  of  fire  indoors. 

118 


FIRELIGHT    VIEWS 

Outdoors  the  case  is  different.  There  the  fire, 
though  lovelier,  must  never  be  left  alone.  Fold 
your  tents  and  march  on;  but  first  put  out  the  em 
bers,  lest  a  single  spark,  running  wild  in  the  woods, 
make  you  the  careless  father  of  a  great  conflagra 
tion. 


119 


IX 
FISHING    IN     STRANGE     WATERS 

f  OR  half  a  year,  now,  I  have  been  writing  a  paper 
a  month,  without  so  much  as  mentioning  a  subject 
near  to  my  heart, — the  ancient,  apostolic,  consola 
tory  art  of  angling. 

It  must  be  admitted  the  season  has  not  been  in 
harmony  with  that  subject.  It  has  been  a  villain 
ous  rude  winter,  (1919-20,)  violent,  pitiless,  per 
sistent  as  a  Prussian;  ice  on  top  of  snow  and  snow 
on  top  of  ice,  and  howling  ravenous  winds,  so  that 
even  those  hardened  anglers  who  let  down  their 
lines  through  holes  in  frozen  ponds,  have  been  de 
barred  from  their  gelid  sport  and  driven  to  find  com 
fort  by  the  fireside. 

Yet  fancy  does  not  freeze  in  zero  weather.  Mem 
ories  and  dreams  run  out  across  the  cold  to  leafy 
forests  and  flowing  rivers  and  sparkling  lakes.  If 
there  has  been  thus  far  no  word  of  angling  in  these 
essays,  you  may  set  it  down,  reader,  to  a  self- 
denying  ordinance,  and  reward  me  with  leave  to  tell 
a  few  stories  of  fishing.  Not  fish-stories,  mark  you ; 


FISHING    IN    STRANGE    WATERS 

for  I  have  no  great  catches,  no  finny  monsters  to 
describe;  only  a  few  small  experiences  which  may 
serve  to  illustrate  the  spirit  of  the  game. 

For  such  recital  the  signal  has  been  given.  Last 
week,  on  a  sharp  icicled  morning,  the  first  hoarse 
robin  bravely  sounded  his  tup-tup-tup  outside  my 
window.  When  these  pages  come  to  you  the  green 
wood  tree  will  be  full  of  song  and  the  kingfisher 
flashing  blue  along  the  stream. 

In  many  strange  waters  have  I  fished,  the  Nile 
and  the  Jordan,  the  Rhine,  the  Rhone,  and  the 
Danube,  but  in  none  that  seemed  to  me  so  strange 
as  the  little  rivers  where  I  cast  an  occasional  fly 
while  the  world-war  was  going  on. 

I  was  sent  to  Holland,  (presumably  "for  my 
country's  good,")  in  the  autumn  of  1913.  There 
was  no  fishing  there  to  speak  of.  Canals,  slow- 
moving  rivers,  shallow  lakes,  with  their  store  of 
pike  and  perch  and  eels,  offer  no  attraction  to  a 
sporting  angler.  To  catch  such  fish  is  more  a  busi 
ness  than  a  sport.  There  was  one  pretty  trout- 
stream  in  South  Limburg;  but  it  was  so  beset  with 
factories  and  mills  and  persecuted  by  bait-fisher 
men  and  netters  that  it  did  not  tempt  me 


CAMP-FIRES 

In  these  sad  circumstances  of  deprivation,  it 
seemed  "almost  Providential"  to  find  that  the 
American  Minister  to  the  Netherlands  was  also  ac 
credited  to  the  Grand  Duchy  of  Luxembourg.  A 
strict  sense  of  official  duty  called  him  thither  every 
year;  and  a  willingness  to  enjoy  small  gifts  of  plea 
sure  paid  him  wages  by  the  way. 

Nature  has  been  kind  to  that  little  inland  coun 
try,  and  history  has  handled  it  roughly  enough  to 
make  it  picturesque  with  human  interest.  It  holds 
more  castles  ruined  and  unrestored  than  any  other 
land  of  equal  size.  Its  small  triangle  of  territory, — 
about  a  thousand  square  miles,  dovetailed  in  be 
tween  Germany,  France,  and  Belgium, — lies  on  top 
of  the  Ardennes,  a  thousand  feet  or  more  above  sea- 
level.  It  is  furrowed  by  deep  valleys,  clothed  with 
rich  woods  of  beech  and  pine,  diversified  with  gray 
and  red  cliffs,  embroidered  with  wild  flowers  and 
many  bright  unnavigable  rivers.  Its  royal  family 
contains  the  six  loveliest  young  princesses  in  the 
world;  and  its  250,000  people  are  as  friendly,  hos 
pitable,  and  independent  as  the  traveller's  heart 
could  wish.  All  this  and  more  you  may  find  set 
forth  admirably  in  the  big  book  on  Luxembourg  by 
Mr.  George  Renwick,  the  British  war  correspondent. 
122 


FISHING    IN    STRANGE    WATERS 

For  useful  information  I  refer  you  to  him,  and  turn 
to  my  fishing. 

My  first  excursion  was  made  in  June,  1914, — the 
Potsdam  Plotters'  month.  Of  what  I  saw  then  to 
convince  me  that  Germany  had  chosen  war  and 
was  ready  to  force  it,  the  story  is  told  in  Fighting 
for  Peace  and  need  not  be  repeated. 

The  second  trip  was  in  April,  1915,  after  Germany's 
long  crime  had  been  begun.  It  was  necessary  for 
the  American  Minister  to  go  down  to  take  charge 
of  certain  British  interests  in  Luxembourg, — a  few 
poor  people  who  had  been  stranded  there  and  who 
sorely  needed  money  and  help.  (What  a  damned 
inhuman  thing  war  is,  no  one  knows  who  has  not 
been  in  the  midst  of  it !)  Mr.  Derulle,  the  faithful 
American  Consular  Agent  in  the  city  of  Luxem 
bourg,  did  the  work,  but  the  minister  had  to  convey 
the  funds  and  supervise  the  accounts. 

The  journey  was  interesting.  The  German 
Minister  at  The  Hague  was  most  polite  and  oblig 
ing  in  the  matter  of  providing  a  vise  for  the  pass 
ports,  and  giving  the  needful  papers  with  big  seals 
to  pass  the  guards  in  what  was  euphemistically 
called  "German-occupied  territory."  It  grated  on 
my  nerves,  but  it  was  the  only  way. 


CAMP-FIRES 

"Which  route  would  you  prefer  to  have  me  fol 
low,"  I  asked,  "through  Germany,  or  through 
Belgium?" 

"But,  my  dear  colleague,"  replied  the  courteous 
Baron  von  Ktihlman,  "that  is  entirely  for  you  to 
choose." 

"With  your  advice,"  I  answered,  "since  I  am 
asking  a  favor." 

"Well,  then,"  he  smiled,  "probably  you  would 
like  to  go  by  way  of  Maestricht  and  Aix-la-Chapelle, 
— in  your  own  automobile, — we  will  detail  an  escort 
to  make  the  journey  easier  and  quicker." 

At  the  border-barrier, — a  double  fence  of  elec 
trically  charged  barbed  wire,  with  a  sentried  open 
ing  ten  feet  wide, — the  escort  appeared.  He  was  an 
amiable  and  intelligent  captain  of  cavalry  in  the 
German  reserve,  university  graduate,  cloth  manu 
facturer,  father  of  a  family,  pleasant  companion, 

named  von  M .  His  conversation  was  good. 

Three  of  his  remarks  were  memorable  because  they 
lifted  a  corner  of  the  veil  from  the  German  state  of 
mind. 

We  were  rolling  along  the  splendid  highway  south 
from  Aix,  through  a  country  bare  of  men  not  in 
uniform.  "This  is  a  terrible  war,"  exclaimed  the 
124 


FISHING    IN    STRANGE    WATERS 

captain,  "not  our  fault,  but  terrible  for  us,  all  the 
same !  Do  you  think  a  quiet  middle-aged  man  like 
me  enjoys  being  called  away  from  his  business,  his 
home,  his  children,  to  join  the  colors  ?  We  shall  be 
ruined.  Of  course  we  shall  win;  but  what?  Our 
money  spent,  our  industries  crippled,  the  best  of 
our  youth  killed  or  maimed, — it  is  a  bad  outlook, 
but  we  are  forced  to  accept  it." 

In  the  quaint  timbered  villages  on  the  plateau 
of  the  Hohes  Venn  many  soldiers  were  on  furlough, 
strolling  with  the  village  girls  in  frankly  amatory 
attitudes.  "Pleasant  for  these  boys  to  come  home 
for  a  few  days  and  see  their  old  sweethearts  again," 
I  remarked.  The  captain  smiled:  "Yes, — well, — 
but, — you  see,  these  boys  don't  belong  to  these 
villages;  and  the  girls  are  not  old  sweethearts,  you 
see.  But  the  army  does  not  discourage  it.  Men 
will  be  needed.  They  will  all  be  good  Germans." 

Just  before  we  cross  the  border  beyond  St.  Vith 
the  captain  says:  "My  general  at  Aix  has  tele 
graphed  the  German  commandant  in  Luxembourg 
to  detail  an  officer  to  act  as  escort  and  body-guard 
to  your  Excellency  in  that  country."  Polite,  but 
astounding ! 

"Many  thanks,"  I  answered,  "most  thoughtful 
125 


CAMP-FIRES 

of  the  general.  But  it  will  not  be  necessary.  In 
Luxembourg  I  shall  be  under  protection  of  her 
Royal  Highness  the  Grand  Duchess,  sovereign  of  an 
independent  state,  in  which  the  Germans  have 
volunteered  to  guard  the  railways.  After  paying 
my  respects  to  her  and  to  the  Prime  Minister,  I 
shall  call  on  the  German  commandant  to  assure 
him  that  no  escort  is  desired.  Will  that  be  correct 
according  to  your  theory  ?  " 

The  captain  blinked,  looked  down  at  his  boots, 
then  grinned  approvingly.  "Absolutely  correct/* 
he  said,  "that  is  just  our  theory.  But,  Gott  im 
Himmely  you  Americans  go  straight  to  the  point ! " 

All  the  diplomatic  affairs  of  the  next  ten  days 
went  smoothly;  and  there  were  three  celestial  days 
on  various  streams,  the  details  of  which  are  vague 
in  memory,  but  the  bright  spots  shine  out. 

One  day  was  passed  with  my  friend  the  notary 
Charles  Klein,  of  the  old  town  of  Wittz,  a  reputable 
lawyer  and  a  renowned,  impassioned  fisher.  He  led 
us,  with  many  halts  for  refreshment  at  wayside 
inns,  to  the  little  river  Sure,  which  runs  through  a 
deep,  flowery  vale  from  west  to  east,  across  the 
Grand  Duchy. 

Our  stretch  of  water  was  between  the  high-arched 
126 


FISHING    IN    STRANGE    WATERS 

Pont  de  Misere  and  the  abandoned  slate-quarry 
of  Bigonville.  The  stream  was  clear  and  lively, 
with  many  rapids  but  no  falls.  It  was  about  the 
size  of  the  Neversink  below  Claryville,  but  more 
open.  The  woods  crept  down  the  steep,  enfolding 
hills,  now  on  this  side,  now  on  that,  but  never  on 
both.  One  bank  was  always  open  for  long  casting, 
which  is  a  delight.  The  brown  trout,  (salmo  fario) , 
•were  plentiful  and  plump,  running  from  a  quarter 
f  a  pound  to  a  pound  weight.  Larger  ones  there 
must  have  been,  but  we  did  not  see  them.  They 
.ccepted  our  tiny  American  flies, — Beaverkill,  Cahill, 
Jueen  of  the  Water,  Royal  Coachman,  and  so  on, — 
at  par  value,  without  discount  for  exchange.  It 
was  easy,  but  not  too  easy,  to  fill  our  creels. 

My  son  and  comrade  Tertius  agreed  with  me  that 
he  European  brown  trout,  though  distinctly  less 
;omely  than  the  American  brook-trout,  or  the  "rain- 
>ow"  of  the  Pacific  Coast,  (not  to  speak  of  the 
gorgeous  salmo  Roosevelti  of  Volcano  Creek),  is  a 
ine  fellow,  a  "dead  game  sport."  The  birds  that 
fluttered  and  skipped  and  sang  around  us  were 
something  of  a  puzzle  to  Tertius,  who  is  an  expert 
HI  this  subject  in  his  own  country.  Some  of  them, 
—blackbirds,  wrens,  tomtits,  linnets,  swallows,  and 
127 


CAMP-FIRES 

so  on, — were  easy  to  identify.  The  crow  and  the 
kingfisher  are  pretty  much  the  same  everywhere. 
But  there  were  also  many  strangers. 

"It  is  funny,"  said  he,  "I  can't  tell  their  names, 
but  I  understand  their  language  perfectly." 

Philip  Gilbert  Hamerton  in  The  Sylvan  Year 
says  that  there  is  a  tradition  among  the  peasants 
of  the  Val  Sainte  VSronique  that  every  bird  repeats 
a  phrase  of  its  own  in  French  words,  and  that  some 
wise  old  persons  have  the  gift  of  understanding 
them.  This  gift  must  be  kept  secret  till  a  man  comes 
to  die;  then  he  may  communicate  it  to  one  of  his 
family.  But  the  trouble  is  that  when  a  man  is  on 
his  death-bed,  he  is  usually  thinking  about  other 
things  than  bird-lore.  So  the  gift  fades  out,  say 
the  peasants,  and  may  soon  be  lost,  like  other  won 
derful  things. 

The  second  day  of  this  series  that  I  remember 
clearly  was  spent  on  a  smaller  stream,  north  of  the 
Sure,  with  Mr.  Le  G.,  the  son  of  the  British  Consul, 
and  other  pleasant  companions.  The  name  of  the 
stream  is  forgotten,  but  the  clear  water  and  the 
pleasant  banks  of  it  are  "in  my  mind's  eye,  Hora 
tio."  It  was  a  meadow-brook  very  like  one  that  I 
know  not  far  from  Norfolk,  Connecticut,  whither 
128 


FISHING    IN    STRANGE    WATERS 

I  have  often  gone  to  fish  with  my  good  friend  the 
village  storekeeper,  S.  Cone. 

Now  there  is  in  all  the  world  no  water  more  pleas 
ant  to  fish  than  a  meadow-brook,  provided  the 
trout  are  there.  The  casting  is  easy,  the  wading 
is  light,  the  fish  are  fat,  the  flowers  of  the  field  are 
plenteous,  and  the  birds  are  abundant  and  songful. 
We  filled  our  baskets,  dined  at  the  wayside  inn,  a 
jolly  company,  and  motored  back  by  moonlight 
to  the  city  of  Luxembourg. 

Concerning  the  1916  journey  to  my  outlying  post 
there  are  a  few  notes  in  my  diary.  I  travelled  in 
y  by  rail  through  Cologne  and  Gerolstein  and 
Trier.  There  was  no  visible  escort;  but  probably 
there  was  one  unseen;  for  at  every  place  where 

had  to  change  trains,  somebody  was  waiting  for 
me,  and  a  compartment  was  reserved.  Everything 
was  orderly  and  polite,  even  in  the  stations  where 
lundreds  of  thousands  of  green-gray  soldiers  were 
rushing  on  their  way  to  the  great  battle  at  Verdun. 
[Perhaps  it  was  because  I  spoke  German  that  people 
were  so  courteous.  Yet  for  that  very  reason  no 

e  could  have  mistaken  me  for  a  native.)  But 
;he  war-bread  in  the  dining-cars  was  dreadful: 
cutter  and  sugar  were  not  at  all:  and  the  meat, 
129 


CAMP-FIRES 

such  as  it  was,  had  already  done  duty  in  the 
soup. 

At  Gerolstein,  (name  made  dear  by  Offenbach's 
Grande  Duchesse,)  many  civilians  got  into  the  train 
with  guns,  green  hats,  and  netted  game-bags  with 
fringes. 

"What  go  they  to  shoot,"  I  asked  a  neighbor, 
"is  it  not  the  closed  time?" 

"But  not  for  crows,"  he  replied. 

"Crows!"  I  cried,  with  a  sickening  thought  of 
the  near  battle-fields. 

"Yes,  mein  Herr,  crows  are  good  to  eat,  healthy 
food.  In  all  the  meat-shops  are  they  to  buy." 

In  the  capital  of  Luxembourg,  perched  on  its 
high  rock,  the  German  garrison  was  still  in  evidence, 
tramping  in  stolid  troops  through  the  streets  while 
the  citizens  turned  their  backs.  Not  even  a  small 
boy  would  run  after  the  soldiers:  think  what  that 
means !  No  longer  did  the  field-gray  ones  sing  when 
they  marched,  as  they  used  to  do  in  1915.  They 
plodded  silent,  evidently  depressed.  The  war  which 
they  had  begun  so  gayly  was  sinking  into  their  souls. 
The  first  shadows  of  the  Great  Fatigue  were  falling 
upon  them;  but  lightly  as  yet. 

Once  I  thought  I  heard  a  military  band  playing 
130 


FISHING    IN    STRANGE    WATERS 

"God  Save  the  King.'*  I  ran  to  the  balcony,  but 
turned  back  again,  remembering  that  the  same  tune 
is  set  to  "Heil  Dir  im  Siegerkranz" 

The  Grand  Duchess  was  already  away  at  her 
summer  castle  of  Colmar-Berg.  So  after  "posing" 
the  needful  cards  and  writing  my  name  in  the  book 
at  the  old  palace,  and  finishing  three  days  of  official 
business  (and  luncheons)  with  Prime  Minister  Thorn 
and  other  dignitaries,  I  was  free  to  turn  to  the 
streams. 

The  first  excursion  was  with  Mr.  Emile  Meyrisch, 
a  genial,  broad-shouldered  ironmaster,  the  head  of 
great  forges  at  Esch,  Diffeedange,  and  Petange  in 
the  south  country,  and  an  angler  of  the  most  con 
firmed  sect.  In  politics  he  was  a  liberal,  in  business 
perhaps  rather  an  autocrat,  and  in  practice  a  friend 
to  his  employees,  looking  carefully  after  their  food- 
supply  and  running  an  open-air  school  on  a  hilltop 
for  their  children,  to  keep  them  well  and  strong. 

He  took  me  to  the  valley  of  the  Clerf,  the  loveliest 
little  river  in  Luxembourg.  By  ruined  castles  and 
picturesque  villages,  among  high-shouldered  hills 
and  smooth  green  meadows  and  hanging  woods  it 
runs  with  dancing  ripples,  long  curves,  and  eddy 
ing  pools  where  the  trout  lurk  close  to  the  bank. 
131 


CAMP-FIRES 

Its  course  is  not  from  west  to  east,  like  the  Sure, 
(no,  I  will  not  call  it  by  that  common  German  name 
the  Sauer.)  The  Clerf  runs  from  north  to  south. 
I  suppose  that  was  why  the  south  wind,  on  that 
quiet  sunny  morning,  carried  into  the  placid  valley 
a  strange  continuous  rumbling  like  very  distant 
thunder.  But  the  clear  stream  paid  no  heed  to  it, 
flowing  with  soft,  untroubled  whispers  of  content 
ment  on  its  winding  way.  And  the  birds  were  not 
dismayed  nor  hindered  in  their  musical  love-making. 
And  the  flowers  bloomed  in  bright  peacefulness, 
neither  dimmed  nor  shaken  by  that  faint  vibration 
of  the  upper  air.  Undoubtedly  it  was  the  noise 
of  the  guns  in  the  offensive  Crown  Prince's  "  Great 
Offensive"  at  Verdun,  a  hundred  kilometres  away. 

Strange  that  a  sound  could  travel  so  far !  Dread 
ful  to  think  what  it  meant !  It  crossed  the  beauty 
of  the  day.  But  what  could  one  do?  Only  fish 
on,  and  wait,  and  work  quietly  for  a  better  day 
when  America  should  come  into  the  war  and  help 
to  end  it  right. 

A  very  fat  and  red-faced  Major,  whom  I  had 
met  before  at  Clervaux,  rode  by  in  a  bridle-path 
through  the  meadow.  He  stopped  to  salute  and 
exchange  greetings. 

132 


FISHING    IN    STRANGE    WATERS 

"How  goes  it?"  I  asked. 

"Verdammt  schlecht"  he  replied.  "This  is  a 
dull  country.  The  people  simply  won't  like  us.  I 
wish  I  was  at  home." 

"  I  too ! "  I  answered.    "  Gluckliche  Reise  !  " 

We  lunched  in  the  roadside  inn  of  WilwerwUiz ; 
a  modest  tavern,  but  a  rich  feast.  The  old  river- 
guardian  was  there,  a  grizzled  veteran  who  angled 
only  with  the  fly,  though  his  patrons  were  mostly 
bait-fishers.  He  had  scorned  to  fish  in  the  morn 
ing.  But  when  he  saw  my  basketful  taken  with 
the  fly,  his  spirit  was  stirred  within  him,  and  he 
girded  up  his  loins  and  went  forth  to  the  combat. 
That  afternoon  he  beat  my  whole  day's  catch  by 
three  trouL  He  grinned  as  he  laid  his  fish  out  in 
a  long  row  on  the  bench  in  front  of  the  inn. 

I  spent  the  night  with  Notary  Klein  at  Wiltz. 
Ever  hospitable,  he  made  a  little  dinner  for  me  at 
the  Hotel  du  Commerce, — a  little  dinner  of  many 
courses  and  rare  vintages, — and  like  the  bridegroom 
at  Cana  of  Galilee  he  served  the  best  wine  last. 

When  we  reached  this  point  the  notary  presented 
a  request.  He  said  that  three  officers  of  the  Ger 
man  garrison,  who  felt  very  lonely,  had  asked  if 
they  might  come  over  to  our  table  after  dinner  and 
133 


CAMP-FIRES 

drink  coffee  with  us.  Had  I  any  objection?  Cer 
tainly  not,  if  he  had  none.  So  they  came,  and  we 
talked  pleasantly  for  a  couple  of  hours  about  vari 
ous  subjects.  One  of  the  officers  was  a  professor 
of  literature  in  a  small  German  university.  Both 
of  the  others  were  well-educated  men.  Finally  we 
drifted  toward  the  war. 

'Why  did  America  sell  munitions  only  to  the 
Allies  ?  It  was  very  unfair.' 

'But  the  market  was  open  to  all.  Doubtless  any 
body  who  had  the  money  could  buy.' 

'Yes,  perhaps;  but  then  it  was  plain  that  if  Ger 
many  bought  them  she  could  not  get  them  home. 
It  was  most  unfair,  not  truly  neutral.' 

'But  could  America  be  expected  as  a  neutral  to 
act  so  as  to  make  up  to  Germany  for  her  lack  of 
effective  sea-power  ? ' 

'No-o-o,  perhaps  not.  But  it  was  extremely 
unfair.  No  doubt  those  British-Americans  who 
were  so  powerful  in  the  United  States  were  to  blame 
for  it.' 

'On  the  contrary;  Americans  of  German  descent 
were  most  prominent  in  making  munitions  for  the 
Allies.  Take  the  name  Schwab,  for  example,  presi 
dent  of  the  Bethlehem  Steel  Company,  a  good  Amer- 
134 


FISHING    IN    STRANGE    WATERS 

ican.    Did  the  Herren  Offizieren  think  his  name  was 
of  British  origin  ? ' 

Slight  confusion  and  hearty  laughter  followed 
this  question.  Then  the  professor  spoke  up  very 
gravely: 

"There  is  one  thing  I  should  like  to  ask  you,  Ex 
cellency.  You  have  travelled  a  good  deal  in  this 
country.  Have  you  heard  the  Luxembourgers  make 
any  objection  to  the  conduct  of  the  German  army 
here?" 

"None,  Herr  Oberst"  I  answered  with  equal 
gravity,  "not  the  slightest!  It  is  not  the  conduct 
of  your  soldiers  to  which  Luxembourg  objects,  it  is 
their  presence." 

"Well,"  he  said  smiling  rather  sadly,  "God  knows 
I  am  tired  of  it  too.  I  want  to  go  home  to  my  books. 
But  is  there  no  chance  that  America  will  come  finally 
to  the  help  of  Germany,  her  old  friend  ? " 

"  Certainly,"  I  replied,  "  there  seems  to  be  a  very 
good  chance.  If  the  present  submarine  warfare 
continues,  it  is  practically  sure  that  America  will 
assist  Germany  in  the  only  possible  way, — by  creat 
ing  a  situation  in  which  the  war  must  come  to  an 
end.  That  would  be  the  best  conceivable  help  for 
Germany." 

135 


CAMP-FIRES 

With  this  observation,  (rather  in  the  enigmatic 
style  of  the  Delphic  oracle,)  and  with  an  appropriate 
"good  night,"  the  conversation  closed,  and  I  went 
home  with  the  Notary. 

But  the  next  day  was  not  spent  in  fishing  as  we 
had  planned.  An  invitation  had  come  by  telegraph 
during  the  night,  bidding  the  American  minister 
to  lunch  with  the  royal  family  at  Colmar-Berg. 
The  only  available  taxicab  in  Wiltz  must  be  com 
mandeered,  and  hot  time  made  over  the  long  road 
in  order  to  reach  the  castle  at  the  appointed  hour. 

"Punctuality,"  says  the  proverb,  "is  the  courtesy 
due  to  kings";  and  the  saying  has  an  extra,  super- 
diplomatic  force  when  the  sovereign  happens  to 
be  a  very  beautiful  young  lady. 

Of  the  luncheon  I  will  not  write,  since  it  was  not 
official,  though  there  were  about  thirty  guests.  Ad 
hering  to  the  old-fashioned  rule,  I  hold  that  hos 
pitality  lays  a  certain  restraint  upon  publicity. 
Yet  there  are  some  memories  which  may  be  recalled 
without  offense. 

The  American  minister's  chair  was  at  the  right 
of  the  Grand  Duchess,  on  whose  delicate,  sensitive 
face  the  strain  of  the  last  two  years,  and  the  suffer 
ings  of  the  poor  among  her  people,  had  written  thin 
136 


FISHING    IN    STRANGE    WATERS 

lines  of  care  and  grief.  She  had  never  coveted  a 
crown, — nor  did  she  wear  one  except  a  circlet  of 
pearls  in  her  dark  hair, — and  I  am  sure  she  was 
glad  when  the  close  of  the  war  permitted  her  to 
hand  over  the  reins  of  rulership  to  her  sister  Char 
lotte,  with  Luxembourg  independent,  sovereign, 
and  free  to  follow  her  natural  sympathies  with 
France. 

At  my  right  was  the  little  Duchess  Antoinette. 
It  was  probably  her  first  appearance  at  such  a  feast, 
for  she  was  still  a  mere  child,  with  her  long  hair 
loose  on  her  shoulders.  Her  announced  engage 
ment  to  that  hardened  ruffian,  the  ex-Crown  Prince 
of  Bavaria,  in  1918,  was  a  shock  to  every  one  of 
decent  feelings.  Now  that  the  German  surrender 
under  the  form  of  armistice  has  put  this  horrid  en 
gagement,  with  other  grisly  things,  into  "innocuous 
desuetude,'*  it  is  pleasant  to  recall  and  reflect  upon 
the  deliverance  of  the  little  Duchess  from  that  royal 
incubus. 

After  all,  royalties  are  flesh  and  blood.  But  there 
is  a  difference  between  the  clean  and  the  unclean, 
which  no  crown  can  disguise. 

The  day  following  the  luncheon  I  had  an  early 
dinner  with  M.  Pescatore,  one  of  the  ablest  members 
137 


CAMP-FIRES 

of  the  Luxembourg  Parliament,  at  his  country  house, 
and  went  out  at  sunset  with  Madame,  to  hunt  the 
deer  in  a  wonderful  beech-forest  along  the  valley 
of  the  Mamer. 

She  was  a  Belgian  countess.  Her  hunting-dress 
made  her  look  like  Rosalind  in  the  Forest  of  Arden, 
and  she  carried  an  effective  little  rifle.  I  took  no 
gun,  having  passed  the  age  when  the  killing  of  deer 
seems  a  pleasure.  Hour  after  hour  in  the  lingering 
twilight  we  roamed  that  enchanted  woodland,  among 
the  smooth  boles  of  the  pillared  beeches,  under  their 
high-arched  roof  of  green,  and  treading  lightly  over 
the  russet  carpet  of  last  year's  fallen  leaves.  My 
spirited  companion  told  me  pitiful  tales  of  things 
that  she  had  seen,  and  knew  by  sure  report  from 
her  relatives  and  friends  in  Belgium, — tales  of  the 
fierce  and  lewd  realities  of  the  German  Schrecklich- 
keit, — things  to  make  an  honest  man's  blood  hot 
within  him. 

Through  the  glimmering  dusk,  from  thicket  to 
thicket,  the  dim  shapes  of  does  and  fawns  flitted 
past  us  unharmed.  Then  a  fine  buck  stood  clearly 
outlined  at  the  end  of  an  open  glade.  The  slender, 
eager  huntress  threw  the  rifle  to  her  shoulder.  A 
sharp  crack  echoed  through  the  glade,  and  the  buck 
138 


FISHING    IN    STRANGE    WATERS 

leaped  away  untouched.  The  huntress  turned  a 
half -disappointed  face  to  me.  "A  bad  shot,"  she 
said,  "but  I  could  shoot  better  than  that.  In  Bel 
gium,  par  exemple,  with  a  Prussian  boar  for  mark  ! " 

My  last  day  in  Luxembourg  was  spent  with  Mey- 
risch  on  the  upper  waters  of  the  Sure.  Lovelier  than 
ever  seemed  that  merry,  tranquil  stream  on  that 
day  of  alternate  showers  and  sunshine.  The  river- 
guardian  who  kept  me  company  was  a  strapping 
young  Luxembourgeois  who  had  served  as  a  volun 
teer  in  the  French  army  and  come  home  with  a 
broken  leg  and  an  unbroken  spirit.  In  the  fore 
noon  the  record  says  that  I  took  forty-two  trout, 
in  the  afternoon  thirteen.  Late  that  night  Meyrisch 
made  a  feast  at  the  Hotel  Brasseur  in  Luxembourg. 
The  landlord  and  his  wife  were  of  the  company. 
Their  oldest  boy  was  with  the  Belgian  army  near 
Ypres.  The  final  toast  we  drank  was  this:  God 
protect  the  boy  and  the  Cause  he  fights  for ! 

Other  fishing-days  in  war-time  I  recall.  Two 
weeks  in  Norway  in  July,  1916,  when  I  made  ac 
quaintance  with  the  big  salmon  of  the  river  Evanger, 
and  proved  the  superiority  of  fly-fishing  to  the  de 
based  sport  of  "harling."  Two  days  on  the  Itchen, 
near  Winchester,  just  after  I  got  out  of  hospital  in 
139 


CAMP-FIRES 

April,  1917,  when  my  good  friend  G.  E.  M.  Skues, 
secretary  of  the  Fly-fishers'  Club  in  London,  showed 
me  how  to  cast  the  dry  fly  so  that  two  of  those 
sophisticated  Itchen  trout  were  lured  and  landed. 
But  I  leave  these  things  unchronicled,  (having  al 
ready  run  beyond  the  space  assigned),  and  turn 
front-face  and  unabashed  to  meet  and  withstand 
the  strictures  of  my  severe  and  sour-complexioned 
reader,  who  has  been  following  these  lines  with  scorn 
ful  impatience. 

"Why,"  I  hear  him  mutter,  "does  this  foolish 
writer  talk  about  silly  things  like  fishing  while  the 
world-war  was  going  on,  and  especially  now  that 
the  great  social  problems  of  the  New  Era  must  be 
solved  at  once?  He  is  a  trifler,  a  hedonist,  a  man 
devoid  of  serious  purpose  and  strenuous  effort." 

Well,  friend,  keep  your  bad  opinion  of  me  if  it 
does  you  any  good.  Certainly  it  does  me  no  harm. 

I  hold  by  the  advice  of  the  Divine  Master  who 
told  His  disciples  to  go  a-fishing,  and  said  to  them 
when  they  were  weary,  "come  ye  yourselves  apart 
into  a  desert  place  and  rest  awhile." 

I  remember  the  unconquerable  French  poilus 
whom  I  saw  in  their  dugouts  playing  cards,  and  in 
the  citadel  of  Verdun  enjoying  merry  vaudeville 
140 


FISHING    IN    STRANGE    WATERS 

shows.  I  recall  the  soldiers  whom  I  saw  deliberately 
fishing  on  the  banks  of  the  Marne  and  the  Meuse 
while  the  guns  roared  round  us.  I  remember  Theo 
dore  Roosevelt,  (no  slacker),  who  whenever  the 
chance  came  rejoiced  to  go  a-hunting,  and  to  tell 
about  it  afterward.  I  believe  that  the  most  serious 
men  are  not  the  most  solemn.  I  believe  that  a 
normal  human  being  needs  relaxation  and  pleasure 
to  keep  him  from  strained  nerves  and  a  temper  of 
fanatical  insanity. 

I  believe  that  the  New  Social  State,  whatever 
it  may  be,  will  not  endure,  nor  be  worth  preserving, 
unless  it  has  room  within  it  for  simple  play,  and 
pure  fun,  and  uncommercial  joy,  and  free,  happy, 
wholesome  recreation. 

Take  that  as  a  guide-post,  if  you  will;  and  then 
let  me  make  my  personal  confession  of  a  fisherman's 
faith. 

I  choose  the  recreation  of  angling  for  four  reasons. 
First,  because  I  like  it:  second,  because  it  does  no 
harm  to  anybody:  third,  because  it  brings  me  in 
touch  with  Nature,  and  with  all  sorts  and  condi 
tions  of  men:  fourth,  because  it  helps  me  to  keep 
fit  for  work  and  duty.  Selah! 


141 


THE    PATHLESS     PROFESSION 

IT  is  a  curious  fact  that  there  is  no  good  guide 
book  to  authorship.  There  are  a  few  self-portraits, 
more  or  less  convincing,  of  authors  at  work.  There 
are  many  essays,  more  or  less  illuminating,  upon 
the  craft  of  writing  in  general,  and  upon  the  habits 
and  procedure  of  certain  great  writers  in  partic 
ular.  The  best  of  these  confessions  and  criticisms 
are  excellent  reading,  full  of  entertainment  and  in 
struction  for  the  alert  and  candid  mind  in  every 
age  and  calling,  and  touched  with  a  special,  sym 
pathetic  interest  for  those  young  persons  who  have 
sternly  resolved,  or  fondly  dreamed,  that  they  will 
follow  a  literary  career.  A  volume  of  carefully 
selected  material  of  this  kind  might  be  made  at 
tractive  and  rewarding  to  readers  who  are  also  in 
tending  authors.  But  the  one  thing  for  which  such 
a  book  ought  not  to  be  taken,  or  mistaken,  is  a 
manual  of  the  profession  of  literature. 

The  reasons  for  this  appear  to  me  quite  as  re 
markable  as  the  fact  itself.    The  business  of  authors 


THE    PATHLESS    PROFESSION 

being  to  write,  why  should  we  not  be  able  to  gather 
from  them  such  instruction  in  regard  to  writing, 
and  the  necessary  preparation  for  it,  as  would  make 
the  pathway  of  authorship  so  plain  that  the  way 
faring  man  though  a  fool  need  not  err  therein  ? 

The  answer  to  this  question  is  an  open  secret, 
an  instructive  paradox. 

There  is  no  pathway  of  authorship. 

It  is  a  voyage,  if  you  like;  but  there  are  no  guide- 
posts  in  the  sea.  It  is  a  flight,  if  you  like;  but  there 
are  no  tracks  in  the  air.  It  is  certainly  not  a  jour 
ney  along  a  railway  line,  or  a  highroad,  or  even  a 
well-marked  trail. 

In  this  it  differs  from  other  vocations  like  the 
Church,  the  Bar,  the  Army,  the  Navy,  Engineer 
ing,  Medicine,  or  Teaching.  For  each  of  these  there 
is  a  pretty  clearly  defined  path  of  preparatory  study, 
with  fixed  gateways  of  examination  along  its  course. 
When  the  last  gate  is  passed  and  the  young  doctor 
is  licensed  to  practice,  the  young  clergyman  or 
dained  to  preach,  the  young  lawyer  admitted  to 
the  bar,  the  path  broadens  into  a  road,  which  leads 
from  one  professional  duty  to  another  and  brings 
him  from  task  to  task,  if  he  is  fortunate  and  in 
dustrious,  with  the  regularity  of  a  time-table,  and, 

143 


CAMP-FIRES 

it  must  be  added,  with  something  of  the  monotony 
of  a  clock. 

It  is  not  so  with  the  young  intending  author. 
There  is  no  time  of  preparation  prescribed,  or  even 
authoritatively  advised,  for  him  or  for  her.  There 
are  no  fierce  examiners  standing  like  lions  in  the 
way.  No  hard-earned  diploma,  or  certificate,  or 
license  is  demanded.  There  are  no  set  duties  to 
be  performed  at  certain  times,  like  a  case  to  be 
argued  at  the  first  session  of  the  court  in  November, 
or  an  appendix  to  be  removed  next  Thursday  after 
noon,  or  two  sermons  to  be  preached  every  Sunday. 
Intending  authors,  and  for  that  matter  practising 
authors,  are  like  Milton's  Adam  and  Eve  when 
the  closed  gate  of  Paradise  was  behind  them: 

"  The  world  was  att  before  them  where  to  choose.9* 

It  looks  very  free  and  easy  and  attractive,  this 
vocation  of  making  books.  All  that  the  young  writer 
has  to  do  is  to  provide  himself,  or  herself,  with  paper 
and  a  pen  (or  a  typewriter),  retire  into  a  convenient 
room  (almost  any  kind  of  a  room  will  answer  the 
purpose),  and  emerge  with  a  book  which  a  pub 
lisher  will  print,  advertise,  and  sell,  and  which  the 
public  will  read. 

144 


THE    PATHLESS    PROFESSION 

And  after  that?  Why,  after  that  it  looks  freer 
and  easier  still.  All  that  the  successful  writer  has 
to  do  is  to  repeat  the  process  with  a  new  book  at 
any  convenient  season. 

But  this  very  freedom,  so  alluring  at  a  distance, 
i  becomes  bewildering  and  troublesome  at  close  range. 
The  young  intending  author  who  has  a  serious  am- 
ibition  and  a  mind  in  thinking  order  very  soon  recog- 
•nizes,  either  by  the  light  of  pure  reason  or  by  the 
glimmer  of  sad  experience,  that  there  are  difficul- 
ities  in  this  simple  business  of  writing  books  which 
^publishers  will  desire  to  print  and  the  public  to  read. 
Many  manuscripts  are  offered  but  few  are  chosen. 
How  does  one  learn  to  cope  with  these  difficulties 
and  overcome  them?  How  does  one  make  ready 
Ito  produce  a  manuscript  which  shall  be  reasonably 
re  of  a  place  among  the  chosen  few?  By  going 
college,  or  by  travel?  By  living  in  solitude,  or 
society  ?  By  imitating  select  models,  or  by  culti- 
,ting  a  strenuous  originality?  By  reading  Plato, 
The  Literary  Digest? 

Nobody  seems  to  know  the  right  answer  to  these 
uestions.     Guesses  are  made  at  them.     Universi 
ties    announce    courses    in    daily    theme-writing, 
ools  of  correspondence  offer  to  teach  the  secrets 
14,5 


CAMP-FIRES 

of  literature.  Bureaus  of  Authorship  are  adver 
tised.  But  the  results  produced  by  these  various 
institutions  are  not  consistent  enough  to  be  regarded 
as  inevitable.  Travel  does  not  guarantee  an  ob 
serving  mind,  nor  solitude  a  profound  one;  nor 
does  society  always  refine  the  intelligence.  The 
strenuous  effort  to  be  original  often  ends  in  a  very 
common  type  of  folly.  Conscious  imitation  may 
be  the  sincerest  flattery,  but  it  rarely  produces  the 
closest  resemblance. 

Meantime,  a  sufficient  number  of  authors,  great 
and  small,  continue  to  arrive,  as  they  always  have 
arrived,  from  their  native  regions,  by  their  own 
ways.  Ask  them  how  they  got  there,  and  they  can 
not  tell  you,  even  when  they  try  to  do  so.  The 
reason  is  because  they  do  not  know.  There  was 
no  pathway.  They  travelled  as  they  could.  Power 
and  skill  came  to  them,  sometimes  suddenly,  some 
times  slowly,  always  inexplicably. 

Do  you  suppose  it  is  possible  to  explain  how 
Shakespeare  became  able  to  write  "Hamlet,"  or 
Milton  to  compose  "Paradise  Lost"?  It  is  true 
that  George  Eliot  describes  "how  she  came  to  write 
fiction,"  and  Stevenson  gives  an  entertaining  sketch 
of  some  of  the  methods  in  which  he  pursued  his 
146 


THE    PATHLESS    PROFESSION 

"own  private  end,  which  was  to  learn  to  write." 
But  does  George  Eliot  herself  understand  the  secret 
of  her  preparation  to  create  her  vivid,  revealing 
"Scenes  from  Clerical  Life"?  Or  will  the  study 
of  those  favorite  authors  to  whom  Stevenson  says  he 
"played  the  sedulous  ape,"  enable  the  young  short- 
story-tellers  really  to  reproduce  his  inimitable  style  ? 

In  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  several 
learned,  industrious,  and  wise  Americans  were  de 
livering  lectures.  Why  did  Emerson's  crystallize 
into  essays?  Where  did  Hawthorne  learn  how  to 
write  "The  Scarlet  Letter,"— in  Bowdoin  College 
or  in  the  Salem  Custom-house?  Could  Thackeray 
have  told  you  how  he  found  the  way  from  "The 
Luck  of  Barry  Lyndon"  to  "Vanity  Fair,"  or 
Dickens  from  "Sketches  by  Boz"  to  "Pickwick 
Papers"? 

There  is  no  other  vocation  of  man  into  which 
"the  unknown  quantity"  enters  as  largely  as  it 
does  into  authorship;  and  almost  all  writers  who 
have  won  fame,  even  in  a  modest  degree,  if  they 
are  thoroughly  candid,  will  confess  to  a  not  un 
pleasant  experience  of  surprise  at  their  own  suc 
cess. 

Now  all  this  implies  an  element  of  uncertainty 
147 


CAMP-FIRES 

in  the  author's  profession, — if,  indeed,  a  vocation 
so  pathless  may  be  called  a  profession  at  all.  In 
the  regular  and,  so  to  speak,  macadamized  pro 
fessions,  those  who  follow  the  road  with  energy, 
fidelity,  and  fair  intelligence  may  count  upon  a 
reasonable  reward.  But  in  the  open  field  of  litera 
ture  it  is  impossible  to  foretell  which  one  of  a  thou 
sand  aspirants  will  come  to  fame,  or  which  ten  will 
be  able  to  earn  a  living. 

It  is  for  this  reason,  no  doubt,  that  some  instinct 
of  prudence,  or  some  pressure  of  necessity,  has  made 
many  authors  provide  themselves  with  another 
bread-winner  than  the  pen.  When  we  consider 
how  many  well-known  and  even  famous  writers, 
from  Chaucer  to  Conan  Doyle,  have  had  some  avoca 
tion  besides  writing,  we  may  justly  conclude  that 
there  is  hardly  any  human  occupation,  from  diplo 
macy  to  doctoring,  in  which  the  intending  author 
may  not  learn  to  write,  and  from  which  genius,  or 
even  talent,  may  not  find  a  passage  into  literature. 
Charles  Lamb's  labor  as  a  clerk  in  the  East  India 
House  did  not  dim  the  luminous  wit  of  his  essays. 
William  De  Morgan's  long  life  as  a  manufacturer 
of  tiles  did  not  prevent  him,  at  last,  from  making 
his  novels  "somehow  good."  The  career  of  James 
148 


THE    PATHLESS    PROFESSION 

Ford  Rhodes  as  an  ironmaster  was  no  bar  to  his 
notable  success  as  a  historian.  Indeed,  it  almost 
seems  as  if  some  useful  occupation,  or  at  least  some 
favorite  recreation  or  pursuit,  to  bring  the  writer 
into  unprofessional  contact  with  the  realities  of 
life  and  the  personalities  of  other  men,  may  be  more 
of  a  help  than  a  hindrance  to  vital  authorship. 

Writing,  in  itself,  is  not  an  especially  interesting 
or  picturesque  employment.  Romance  can  make 
little  of  it.  Even  when  the  hero  of  a  novel  is  a  lit 
erary  person,  like  Arthur  Pendennis  or  David  Cop- 
perfield,  the  things  that  interest  us  most  happen 
to  him  outside  of  the  book-room.  It  is  what  lies 
behind  writing,  and  leads  up  to  it,  and  flows  into 
it,  that  really  counts. 

The  biography  of  an  author  is  almost  interrupted 
when  he  takes  his  pen  in  hand. 

Who  would  not  ride  with  Scott  on  a  summer  raid 
through  the  Highlands,  or  walk  with  him  and  his 
dogs  beside  the  Tweed,  rather  than  watch  him  at 
work  in  the  little  room  where  he  wrote  "Waverley" 
by  candle-light? 

I  think  it  was  Byron  who  said  something  like 
this:  "The  moment  in  which  a  poem  is  conceived 
is  one  of  infinite  pleasure,  the  hours  in  which  it  is 

149 


CAMP-FIRES 

brought  forth  are  full  of  the  pains  of  labor."  Of 
course  I  do  not  mean  to  deny  that  the  author's 
vocation  has  its  own  inward  delight  and  its  own 
exceeding  great  reward.  The  delight  lies  in  the 
conception  of  something  that  craves  utterance: 
and  the  reward  lies  in  the  production  of  something 
that  goes  out  alive  into  the  world.  A  true  call  to 
the  vocation  of  literature  is  both  inward  and  out 
ward:  a  strong  desire  of  self -expression,  and  a  proved 
power  of  communicating  thought  and  feeling  through 
the  written  word. 

The  wish  to  write  merely  for  the  sake  of  being 
a  writer,  if  I  may  so  describe  a  vague  ambition  which 
vexes  many  young  persons,  is  rather  a  small  and 
futile  thing,  and  seldom  leads  to  happiness,  use 
fulness,  or  greatness. 

Literature  has  been  made  by  men  and  women 
who  became  writers  because  they  had  something 
to  say  and  took  the  necessary  pains  to  learn  how 
to  say  it. 

But  how  did  this  happen  to  these  men  and 
women?  What  brought  them  to  this  happy  pass 
where  the  inward  call  to  self-expression  was  con 
firmed  by  the  outward  power  to  interest  readers? 
Who  can  tell  ? 

150 


THE    PATHLESS    PROFESSION 

It  looks  simple.  And  no  doubt  there  is  a  certain 
element  of  simplicity  in  the  necessary  processes  of 
learning  to  spell,  to  construct  sentences,  to  use  words 
correctly,  to  develop  plots,  to  recognize  rhymes, 
and  to  observe  metres.  But  there  is  a  mystery  in 
it,  after  all. 

From  Shakespeare's  deepest  tragedy  to  Kipling's 
most  rattling  ditty,  from  Wordsworth's  loftiest  ode 
to  Dobson's  lightest  lyric,  from  Victor  Hugo's  big 
gest  romance  to  De  Maupassant's  briefest  tale, 
from  Plato's  profoundest  dialogue  to  Chesterton's 
most  paradoxical  monologue,  from  George  Eliot's 
"Romola"  to  Miss  Alcott's  "Little  Women,"  every 
bit  of  literature,  great  or  small,  has  a  measure  of 
magic  in  it,  and  ultimately  is  no  more  explicable 
than  life  itself. 


151 


XI 
A    MID-PACIFIC     PAGEANT 

live  in  a  period  of  historic  pageants.  The 
world,  fatigued  by  the  monotony  of  manners  and 
dress  which  civilization  is  imposing  on  its  once 
gaily  variegated  folks,  seeks  a  brief  escape  from  the 
tiresome  prospect  of  a  standardized  humanity.  It 
loves  to  recall  for  an  hour  the  fanciful  costumes  and 
scenes,  the  dramatic  and  symbolic  actions  of  the 
past.  History  lays  aside  her  dusty  dignity  and 
goes  into  moving  pictures. 

London  and  Paris  revisualize  their  barbaric 
childhood  and  see  themselves  in  the  fierce  conflicts 
and  gallant  enterprises  of  youth.  Alfred  repels  the 
Danes,  Charlemagne  assembles  his  chivalry,  William 
of  Normandy  conquers  Britain,  Columbus  discovers 
America,  Henry  Hudson  sails  the  Half  Moon  up 
Manhattan  Bay,  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  set  their  pos 
sessive  foot  on  the  stern  and  rock-bound  coast  of 
Massachusetts,  the  French  monks  penetrate  the 
Middle  West  by  the  broad  avenue  of  the  Missis- 
152 


A    MID-PACIFIC    PAGEANT 

sippi,  and  the  Spanish  friars  build  their  missions  in 
California. 

The  "first  settlers"  of  North  Hingham,  and  New 
Utrecht,  and  West  Colbyville,  and  Calvinton,  and 
Sauk  City  Centre,  and  Almadena,  and  many  an 
other  place  dear  to  its  inhabitants,  revisit  the  frail 
glimpses  of  glory  and  show  their  ancient  garb  and 
authority  before  their  proud  descendants. 

The  local  audience  gleefully  recognizes  the  fa 
miliar  performers  in  their  unfamiliar  guise.  Old 
Bill  Hodson  as  Columbus  awakens  applause  which 
he  never  received  as  postmaster.  Hi  Waite,  the 
plumber,  makes  an  immense  success  as  William 
Penn.  Maude  Alice  Magillicuddy  is  ravishing  as  the 
Indian  Princess  with  beaded  leggings.  The  Rever 
end  Adoniram  Jump  is  welcomed  with  hilarity  as 
Bloodeye  Ben  the  stern  and  deadly  Sheriff.  Multi 
tudinous  laughter,  and  cheering,  and  hearty  hand- 
clapping  run  around  the  encircling  throng.  But 
behind  the  noise  there  is  an  eager  attention,  a  seri 
ous  pleasure,  a  sense  of  imaginative  satisfaction. 
The  village,  the  town,  even  the  conventional  city, 
has  been  linked  up  for  an  hour  with  the  wonderful 
past,  in  which  strange  things  happened  and  the 
raiment  of  life  was  a  Joseph's  coat  of  many  colors. 
153 


CAMP-FIRES 

Were  events  really  so  much  more  significant  and 
entertaining  in  old  times  than  they  are  now?  Or 
is  it  only  an  illusion  of  perspective,  an  illustration  of 
the  law  that 

"the  past  must  win 
A  glory  by  its  being  far, 
And  orb  into  the  perfect  star 
We  saw  not  when  we  moved  therein"? 

WiD  the  people  of  2000  A.  D.  look  back  to  the  era 
when  the  airplane  and  wireless  telegraphy  were  dis 
covered  as  the  true  and  only  age  of  romance  ?  Who 
knows?  What  difference?  For  us,  in  these  com 
plicated  days,  it  is  a  delight  to  reverse  our  vision 
and  see  things  pass  before  us  in  large  outline, 
simpler  and  more  striking, — perhaps  truer,  perhaps 
only  easier  to  think  we  understand. 

One  of  the  most  vivid  and  delightful  pageants 
that  I  have  ever  seen  was  in  April  of  1920,  on  an 
island  in  the  middle  of  the  Pacific  Ocean,  at  the  hun 
dredth  anniversary  of  Christian  Missions  in  Hawaii. 
It  was  memorable  not  for  its  costly  splendor  and 
famous  audience,  but  for  the  clearness  and  signifi 
cance  of  its  scenes  and  the  wondrous  beauty  of  the 
stage  on  which  it  was  set.  Moreover,  along  with  the 
154 


A    MID-PACIFIC    PAGEANT 

pageant  and  around  it,  before  and  after,  there  ran 
an  accompaniment  which  illuminated  and  empha 
sized  its  meaning  and  added  infinitely  to  its  charm. 
Of  this  I  will  speak  first. 

The  Hawaiian  Islands  are  the  carrefour  of  the 
watery  highways  between  East  and  West.  Lay  a 
course  from  Tokyo  to  Panama,  from  Vancouver  to 
Melbourne,  from  Seattle  to  Singapore,  from  San 
Francisco  to  Manila,  from  Los  Angeles  to  Hong 
kong,  and  your  lines  will  make  a  star  in  the  sea  not 
far  from  Honolulu. 

Two  thousand  miles  away  is  the  mainland  of 
North  America, — four  or  five  thousand,  the  main 
land  of  Asia, — far  to  southward,  the  sprinkled  isles 
of  Polynesia, — far  to  northward  the  rocky,  frosty 
chain  of  the  Aleutians.  The  vast  sapphire  solitude 
of  the  Pacific  encircles  the  Territory  of  Hawaii  with 
a  beautiful  isolation  which  the  adventurous  spirit 
of  man  has  transformed  into  an  opening  for  world 
wide  commerce.  The  lonely  place  has  become  a 
port  of  call  for  all  nations. 

You  must  not  think  of  these  islands  as  a  cluster 

>of  coral  reefs,  embowered  in  palms  and  sweltering 

under  the  rays  of  a  tropical  sun.    They  are  a  group 

of  five,  each  one  large  enough  to  make  a  little  state 

155 


CAMP-FIRES 

in  New  England  or  Europe,  and  separated  by  wide 
stretches  of  seldom-quiet  sea. 

From  Oahu,  the  only  island  I  visited,  you  can 
just  see  Molokai  with  the  lofty  peak  of  Maui  be 
hind  it,  like  a  lonely  purple  cloud  on  the  horizon. 
Away  to  the  southeast  the  big  bulk  of  Hawaii, 
where  the  volcanoes  are  still  on  active  duty,  is  lost 
in  distance.  Away  to  the  northwest  the  sharp  peaks 
and  cloven  valleys  of  Kauai  are  invisible. 

But  Oahu  contains  in  itself  the  makings  of  a  tiny 
complete  continent.  There  are  two  ranges  of  real 
mountains,  which  rose  from  the  bottom  of  the  sea 
some  twenty  thousand  years  ago,  "by  drastic  lift 
of  pent  volcanic  fires."  Wind  and  weather  have 
carved  them  into  jagged  ridges  and  pinnacles  four 
thousand  feet  high.  Between  them  lies  the  broad 
upland  plain  of  Waialua  and  Ewa.  The  mountain 
sides  are  furrowed  by  deep  glens  and  ravines, 
sharpest  on  the  northeast  side  where  the  rains  are 
heaviest,  gentler  on  the  south  and  west  where  the 
vales  spread  out,  fanlike,  into  the  broad  sugar- 
plantations  of  the  coast,  and  the  virid  fields  of 
springing  rice. 

The  foliage  of  the  hills  and  valleys  is  wonderfully 
varied.  The  pale  green  of  the  kukui  contrasts; 
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vividly  with  the  dark  green  of  the  koa  and  the  ohia. 
Long  avenues  of  sombre  ironwood-trees  with  droop 
ing  threadlike  leaves  stretch  beside  the  road.  The 
huge  banyans  and  monkey-pods  spread  their  taber 
nacles  of  pillared  shade.  The  hau  twists  and  twines 
its  smooth  trunks  and  branches  into  wide  arbors,  as 
if  it  were  half  tree  and  half  vine.  Stiff  little  papayas, 
with  round,  flat  tops  like  parasols,  lift  their  clusters 
of  delicious  fruit  as  high  as  they  can  reach.  Plumy 
mangoes  conceal  rich  treasure  among  their  pendent 
foliage.  Breadfruits  expand  their  broad  palmated 
leaves.  The  bright  feathery  green  of  the  algaroba- 
trees  (springing  from  a  few  seed-pods  which  a  priest 
brought  from  the  mainland  in  his  pocket  not  many 
years  ago)  has  flowed  far  and  wide  over  the  lowlands 
and  slopes,  making  open  groves  where  the  cattle 
feed  on  the  fallen  beans,  and  tangled  thickets  full  of 
needle-sharp  thorns. 

For  purely  tropical  effect  there  are  the  bananas, 
with  broad  bending  leaves,  always  flourishing  and 
generally  dishevelled;  and  the  palms,  a  score  of 
different  kinds, — the  smooth  columnar  royal  palm 
with  green-gray  trunk  and  bushy  head  high-lifted; 
the  slender  cocoa-palm  with  corrugated  bole,  often 
slanting  or  curving,  and  heavy  fruit  half  concealed 
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CAMP-FIRES 

by  its  tousled  fronds;  the  rough-bodied  palmetto; 
and  many  another  little  palm  of  the  kind  that 
withers  and  pines  in  the  hallways  of  our  Northern 
houses,  but  here  spreads  its  hands  abroad  and  wres 
tles  gaily  with  the  wind. 

The  wind, — the  wind,  the  glorious  life-giving 
trade-wind  is  the  good  angel  of  the  Hawaiian 
Islands.  It  is  the  only  big  wind  that  I  ever 
loved. 

Nine  months  of  the  year  it  blows  out  of  the  north 
east  over  the  lapis-lazuli  plain  of  the  Pacific,  bring 
ing  health  and  joy  on  its  wings.  The  great  white 
clouds  come  with  it,  like  treasure-fleets  with  high- 
piled  sails.  Above  the  mountains  they  pause, 
tangled  and  broken  among  the  peaks.  They  change 
to  dark  gray  and  blue  and  almost  black.  They  let 
down  their  far-brought  riches,  now  in  showers  as 
soft  as  melted  sunshine,  now  in  torrential  douches  of 
seeming-solid  rain.  But  the  big  trade-wind  still 
blows,  drawing  down  the  valleys,  tossing  the  palm- 
fronds,  waving  the  long  boughs  of  the  algarobas 
and  the  slender  tops  of  the  ironwoods,  refreshing 
the  city  streets  and  the  sun-warmed  beaches,  where 
perhaps  not  a  drop  of  rain  has  fallen,  rustling 
through  the  fragrant  gardens,  and  passing  out  to 
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sea  with  a  merry  train  of  whitecaps.  There  you 
shall  see  him  reassembling  his  snowy  squadrons  and 
flotillas  of  the  air,  driving  them  southward  to  re 
fresh  other  thirsty  islands. 

It  is  the  trade-wind  that  accounts  for  the  livable 
and  lovable  climate  of  Hawaii,  in  which  a  native 
race  of  extraordinary  beauty  and  strength  developed, 
and  people  of  America  and  Europe  and  Asia  can 
make  their  homes  without  loss  of  health  or  working 
vigor.  The  thermometer,  elsewhere  a  recorder  of 
weather-torments,  here  loses  its  terrors,  for  it  moves 
between  60°  for  winter's  cold  and  85°  for  summer's 
heat.  Even  when  the  sun  is  most  ardent  there  is 
always  a  breeze  in  the  shade  that  will  cool  you  gently 
without  a  chill. 

Honolulu  is  no  siesta-city,  where  the  shops  are 
closed  at  noonday  and  the  merchants  retire  to  ham 
mocks.  It  is  a  busy,  thriving,  modern  town,  which 
works  full  time  every  week-day,  and  where  the 
telephone  rings  without  ceasing.  Its  suburbs  are 
reaching  out  Ewa  way,  Waikiki  way,  Nuuanu 
and  Manoa  way,  threading  house  after  house  on 
the  trolley-lines.  It  has  a  good  water-supply  and 
a  clean  harbor  front.  Best  of  all,  its  civic  life  has 
|  a  core  of  intelligence  and  public  spirit,  embodied 

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CAMP-FIRES 

in  men  and  women  of  missionary  stock,  who  feel 
that  they  are  citizens  of  no  mean  city,  and  are  re 
solved  to  have  it  look  well  and  be  well. 

Yet  it  is  astonishing  how  unobtrusive  the  city 
is,  how  little  it  mars  the  landscape.  I  often  found 
myself  forgetting  that  it  was  there.  Our  friendly 
hosts  lived  in  a  house  with  broad  lanai  and  long 
pergola,  on  the  shoulder  of  one  of  the  lower  hills 
sloping  down  from  Mt.  Tantalus.  Look  out  be 
tween  the  royal  palms  on  the  terrace,  and  you  will 
see  the  city  almost  submerged  in  a  sea  of  greenery, 
like  a  swimmer  floating  on  his  back  in  tranquil 
waters.  Beyond  the  long  beach  is  a  lagoon  of  trans 
lucent  aqua  marina,  and  beyond  that  the  silver 
curve  of  the  surf  on  the  coral  reef,  and  beyond  that 
the  intense  cobalt  blue  of  the  Pacific.  To  the  left 
lies  the  fulvous  shape  of  Diamond  Head,  like  a  lion 
cmtchant,  looking  out  to  sea.  Farther  to  the  east, 
and  sweeping  around  into  the  north,  rise  the  dark 
peaks  of  the  Koolau  Range,  embracing  the  Manoa 
Valley.  Here  and  there  you  see  the  roofs  of  houses 
among  the  trees,  the  long  arcades  of  Punahou  School, 
the  white  facade  of  the  College  of  Hawaii,  the  many 
windows  of  the  Mid-Pacific  Institute, — (never  a 
place  with  so  many  fine  schools  as  Honolulu  !) .  But 
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for  the  most  part  it  is  a  tree-top  view,  like  that  from 
the  cottage  in  the  last  scene  of  "Peter  Pan." 

Under  the  trees,  and  clambering  over  them,  what 
flowers  and  vines !  Tall  hedges  of  hibiscus  all  abloom 
with  scarlet  and  white  and  rose  and  yellow  of  every 
shade:  masses  of  climbing  Bougainvillea  covered 
with  light  purple  or  flame-colored  flowers:  fragrant 
plumarias  with  clusters  of  pale  white,  or  ivory  yel 
low,  or  shell  pink:  lilies,  milk-white  or  tawny  orange: 
allamanda  vines  thickly  set  with  rich  golden  trum 
pets,  and  honeysuckles  with  coral  red:  oleanders, 
white  and  rose:  acacias,  drooping  aureate  plumes, 
or  clustering  pink  blossoms  like  apple-trees  in  May: 
intense  burning  red  of  Poinsettia;  heavenly  blue  of 
a  tree  whose  name  I  do  not  know,  but  whose  rare 
beauty  I  shall  never  forget.  They  tell  me  that  later 
in  the  season  the  long  wall  around  Oahu  College, 
where  the  night-blooming  cereus  covers  the  stones, 
will  break  into  a  glory  of  white  bloom.  But  I  can't 
wait  for  that. 

The  sea  is  as  rich  in  colors  as  the  land.  The  water 
changes  its  hues  like  peacock-feathers.  The  fish 
beneath  it  are  vivid  as  if  they  had  been  dipped  in 
rainbows.  You  may  see  them  in  glass  tanks  at  the 
Aquarium, — weird,  amazing  creatures,  some  with 
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CAMP-FIRES 

long  bills  like  birds,  others  with  floating  plumes 
and  pennants, — streaked  and  striped  and  speckled, 
as  if  a  mad  painter  had  decorated  them.  I  could 
not  get  rid  of  the  feeling  that  they  had  been  fabri 
cated  for  the  amusement  of  the  visitor. 

But  when  I  went  on  a  picnic  in  the  lonely,  lovely 
bay  of  Hanama  I  saw  them  and  caught  them  among 
the  coral  and  lava  rocks,  at  the  foot  of  huge  cliffs 
where  the  long  waves  rolled  and  broke  in  fountains 
of  high-spouting  foam.  Those  fish  were  quite  as 
quaint  as  their  cousins  in  the  Aquarium:  pale 
green,  fringed  with  azure  and  banded  obliquely 
with  broad  strips  of  black;  bright  blue,  with  orange 
fins,  and  on  the  sides  a  damascened  pattern  of  mauve 
and  apple-green;  dark  green,  bordered  with  dark 
blue,  and  inlaid  across  the  body  with  lozenges  of 
crimson. 

I  tell  you  we  caught  fish  there  that  were  abso 
lutely  incredible.  I  disbelieved  in  them  even  while 
they  flapped  upon  the  rocks.  But  one  I  firmly  be 
lieved  in, — the  golden  giant,  with  a  beak  like  an 
eagle's  and  a  tail  like  a  lyre-bird's,  which  the  lady 
avowed  she  saw  swimming  disdainfully  around  her 
hook  in  the  clear  water.  She  angled  for  him  with 
the  patience  of  a  saint,  the  hope  of  a  poet,  and  the 
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courage  of  a  hero.  The  waves  swirled  about  her 
knees;  the  spray  dashed  over  her  shoulders;  her 
mind  was  firmly  set  upon  that  preposterous,  scorn- 
ful  fish.  But  she  never  caught  him.  That  is  why 
I  believe  in  him. 

On  the  way  home  from  our  motor-rides  we 
would  stop  at  some  convenient  place, — oftenest  at 
the  long  beach  of  Kahala, — and  have  a  swim  in  the 
sea.  The  water  was  warm,  and  soft  as  silk.  With 
in  the  lagoon  it  was  still,  but  on  the  reef  beyond 
the  big  waves  were  roaring,  (as  Bottom  says,) 
"gently  as  any  sucking  dove."  Bathing  in  the 
Pacific  is  a  pastime  fit  for  Paradise.  I  trust  that 
some  equivalent  substitute  for  it  will  be  provided 
in  that  world  where,  St.  John  tells  us,  "There  shall 
be  no  more  sea." 

At  Waikiki  Beach  we  tried  the  surf-riding  in  a 
long,  narrow,  outrigger-canoe.  You  paddle  out  a 
quarter  of  a  mile,  beyond  the  breakers;  then  you 
wait  for  a  big  roller, — a  decuman,  the  Romans  called 
it,  believing  that  the  tenth  wave  was  always  the 
largest.  But  the  muscular  Hawaiian  boy  who  steers, 
(adequately  clothed  in  a  loin-cloth  and  his  bronzed 
skin,)  knows  nothing  of  Latin  superstitions.  He 
feels  by  instinct  when  the  roller  is  coming;  swings 
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CAMP-FIRES 

the  dugout  toward  the  beach  and  gives  a  yell;  every 
body  paddles  hard;  the  water  swells  beneath  us, 
rises,  sweeps  forward,  breaks  into  foam;  and  the 
canoe  is  carried  swiftly  on  the  crest,  smothered  in 
spray, — impelled  by  an  immeasurable  force,  yet 
guided  straight  by  human  will  and  skill,  unable 
to  turn  back,  yet  safe  in  darting  forward, — till  the 
wave  sinks  in  soft  ripples  on  the  sand. 

That  is  the  joy  of  motion:  to  ride  on  something 
that  is  infinitely  stronger  than  you,  and  yet  to  be 
the  master  of  your  course.  It  is  the  thrill  of  tobog 
ganing,  skate-sailing,  air-planing,  surf-riding, — to 
feel  yourself  borne  along  by  the  irresistible,  but 
still  the  captain  of  your  own  little  ship ! 

I  have  delayed  too  long,  perhaps,  in  the  descrip 
tion  of  the  scene  and  the  accompaniments  of  the 
Mid-Pacific  Pageant  of  which  I  set  out  to  tell  you. 
Yet  here  (and  often  elsewhere  in  the  world,)  the 
stage  belongs  to  the  play,  and  the  decor  is  part  of 
the  action. 

In  the  spacious  park  of  Punahou  School,  (founded 

by  the  missionaries,)  there  is  a  broad  playground 

called  Alexander  Field,  (given  by  the  descendants 

of  missionaries,)  and  behind  this  rises  Rocky  Hill, 

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A    MID-PACIFIC    PAGEANT 

a  considerable  height,  with  grassy  slopes  strewn 
with  blocks  of  lava,  and  a  shallow  valley  in  the 
centre,  leading  by  easy  gradations  toward  the  sum 
mit. 

The  usual  arrangement  of  an  outdoor  play  is 
reversed.  The  audience  and  the  chorus  occupy 
the  level:  the  actors  move  in  the  amphitheatre 
above  them,  going  and  coming  by  their  palm- 
screened  exits, — makaiy  seaward, — mauka,  toward 
the  mountains. 

Seven  hundred  voices  are  in  the  chorus,  gath 
ered  from  various  schools  and  colleges,  including 
Hawaiians,  Filipinos,  Japanese,  Chinese,  Portuguese, 
Porto  Ricans,  and  Anglo-Saxons.  In  the  audienqe 
there  seem  to  be  ten  or  twelve  thousand,  scattered 
over  the  playing-field  and  the  grassy  slopes  and 
terraces  around  it.  The  pageant  represents  the 
history  of  Hawaii  for  a  hundred  years,  from  the 
arrival  of  the  first  missionaries  from  New  England 
in  1820,  down  to  the  present  day. 

It  is  difficult  to  compress  so  long  a  period  into 
so  short  a  show.  To  tell  the  truth,  there  are  some 
ancient  ways  and  manners  in  the  record  which  must 
be  left  invisible;  and  some  modern  episodes  which 
the  most  raging  realist  would  not  care  to  put  upon 
165 


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CAMP-FIRES 

the  stage;  and  some  political  complications  and 
intrigues  which  not  even  the  most  confidential  chorus 
and  the  most  elaborate  tableaux  could  fully  present. 
But  the  main  story,  the  story  of  the  things  that 
really  count  and  signify,  is  simple  enough.  Miss 
Ethel  Damon  has  told  it  with  admirable  skill  in 
her  scenario  and  text;  and  Miss  Jane  Winne  has 
preluded  and  accompanied  it  with  excellent  music. 

The  performance  opens  with  Beethoven's  "Hymn 
of  Creation/'  rendered  by  the  Hawaiian  Band. 
Then  comes  a  choral  overture  suggesting  the  ancient 
state  of  civil  war  on  the  islands,  the  unrest  and 
confusion  caused  by  the  old  tabu  system,  and  the 
comparative  unity  and  peace  brought  by  the  vic 
tories  of  that  beneficent  tyrant,  Kamehameha  I,  the 
Charlemagne  of  savages.  Then  comes  the  appeal 
to  the  imagination  through  the  eyes,  in  color,  move 
ment,  and  human  action. 

You  must  know  a  little  about  the  history  in  order 
to  follow  the  story  closely,  and  to  supply  in  imagina 
tion  the  darker  elements  of  human  sacrifice  and  in 
fanticide  and  drunkenness  and  debauchery  which 
so  nearly  turned  the  Hawaiian  drama  into  an  irre 
mediable  tragedy. 

But  even  without  this  knowledge  you  can  feel 
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the  magic  of  the  scene;  the  glorious  setting  of  the 
play  between  the  mountains  and  the  sea;  the  little 
human  shapes  coming  and  going  along  the  grassy 
trails,  among  the  scattered  rocks  and  wind-tossed 
trees;  bare,  brown  arms  and  legs  glistening  in  the 
sun,  many-colored  garments  fluttering  in  the  breeze, 
files  and  groups  and  crowds  of  men  and  women  and 
children  forming  and  dissolving  around  certain 
dominant  figures, — a  chapter  of  the  human  romance, 
unfolded  on  the  breast  of  nature,  beneath  the  open 
sky,  in  the  light  of  the  Eternal  Presence. 

The  first  picture  shows  the  royal  state  of  Kame- 
hameha  the  Great,  the  native  conqueror  of  the  isl 
ands.  Ancient  rites  and  customs  are  displayed: 
old  women  beating  bark  for  tfopa-cloth,  old  men 
preparing  poi,  chiefs  and  chiefesses  paying  homage, 
commoners  bringing  their  tribute  of  food  and  gar 
ments,  all  prostrating  themselves  before  the  mon 
arch;  a  procession  of  soldiers  and  priests,  carrying 
tall  standards  of  war  and  hideous  idols,  the  ugliest 
and  most  sacred  of  which  is  the  red  god  of  battle; 
a  great  feast  spread  on  the  ground;  hula-hula  danc 
ing  by  beautiful  damsels  with  mild  reservations. 
It  is  a  confused,  barbaric  scene,  dominated  by  the 
tall  old  King  in  his  cloak  and  helmet  of  red  and 
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CAMP-FIRES 

yellow  feathers.  He  is  gloomy  and  unsatisfied,  all- 
powerful  and  sad:  his  red  god  gives  him  no  counsel 
for  the  using  of  his  power.  He  vainly  seeks  enlighten 
ment  from  his  oldest  priest  and  from  one  of  the 
white  men  in  his  train.  Silent  and  sombre,  "the 
Lonely  One"  stalks  off  toward  the  sea,  and  the 
crowd  melts  away. 

The  second  picture  shows  the  breaking  of  the 
ancient  tabu  system  and  the  destruction  of  the  idols. 
The  new  King,  Liholiho,  is  afraid  at  first,  but  his 
reluctance  is  overcome  by  the  Queen,  and  the  Queen 
Regent,  who  is  in  effect  the  most  powerful  person 
in  the  islands.  It  is  the  women  who  have  suffered 
most  from  the  tyranny  of  tabu,  which  forbade  them 
to  eat  with  their  fathers,  husbands,  or  male  chil 
dren,  and  prohibited  them  from  using  the  most 
nourishing  foods,  under  penalty  of  death.  Woman 
hood  rebels.  The  Queen  eats  a  forbidden  banana 
with  her  little  son.  Thus  the  tabu  is  badly  cracked 
if  not  smashed.  The  Queen  Regent  argues,  (and 
perhaps  threatens,)  with  the  King  until  he  yields. 
The  idols  are  thrown  down,  trampled  under  foot, 
burned.  The  bands  of  ancient,  cruel  superstition 
are  loosed. 

(But  note  here,  reader,  a  strange  fact  unknown 
168 


A    MID-PACIFIC    PAGEANT 

to  the  audience.  The  native  Hawaiian  actors  cast 
for  the  part  of  iconoclasts,  alarmed  by  the  mys 
terious  death  of  one  of  their  number  a  few  days 
before,  declined  to  play  the  role  of  idol-breakers. 
Their  place  has  to  be  supplied  by  Filipino  and  Chi 
nese  actors,  whose  subconscious  minds  have  no 
roots  of  association  with  these  particular  images. 
Even  in  the  twentieth  century,  as  the  Romans  said 
long  ago,  "you  can't  expel  nature  with  a  pitch 
fork," — nor  with  a  pageant.) 

The  third  and  fourth  pictures  show  the  arrival 
of  the  Christian  missionaries  from  New  England, — 
seven  men  and  seven  women,  with  five  children, — 
and  the  beginning  of  their  work.  The  crisis  of  peril 
in  their  first  reception,  the  gentle  persuasions  by 
which  they  win  a  welcome  and  permission  to  stay, 
the  busyness  of  their  early  days  in  teaching  the 
gentle  savages  the  rudiments  of  learning  and  the 
arts  of  peace,  are  well  depicted.  The  contrast  in 
dress  between  the  styles  of  New  Haven  and  of  Hawaii 
in  1820  is  striking.  The  compromise  invented  for 
the  native  women  in  the  shapeless  form  of  the  ho- 
loku,  (a  kind  of  outdoor  nightgown,)  is  not  alto 
gether  successful,  but  brilliant  colors  save  it. 
Conch-shells  call  the  children  to  open-air  schools. 
169 


CAMP-FIRES 

Spinning-wheels  are  brought  out.  Needles  get 
busy.  A  great  white  cross  is  disclosed  at  the  top 
of  the  hill.  Allegorical  figures  of  Faith,  Hope,  and 
Charity,  clad  respectively  in  blue,  pale  green,  and 
rose  chiffon,  flutter  around,  pretty  and  futile  as 
allegorical  figures  usually  are.  The  new  era  has 
begun.  The  details  of  hard  work  and  struggle  and 
danger  and  privation  are  written  in  the  diaries  and 
letters  and  records  of  the  missionaries.  Only  the 
symbolic  picture  is  shown  here, — Christian  love 
and  courage  setting  out  to  rescue  a  generous,  warm 
hearted  race  from  the  degrading  vices  of  so-called 
civilization  without  a  religion,  and  to  heal  the  poison- 
sores  left  by  the  fetters  of  hoary  superstition. 

The  most  dramatic  episode  in  the  story  is  shown 
in  the  fifth  picture.  Kapiolani,  a  noble  princess 
of  the  islands,  resolves  to  defy  the  goddess  Pele, 
fierce  mistress  of  undying  fire,  who  dwells  in  the 
seething,  flame-spouting  crater  of  Kilauea.  The 
princess,  personated  by  a  stately  Hawaiian  woman, 
climbs  the  crag  on  which  a  mimic  volcano  has  been 
built.  The  volcano  emits  sufficient  red  fire  and 
black  smoke  to  suggest  the  terrifying  reality  to  the 
imagination.  The  princess  picks  the  sacred  berries, 
which  it  is  death  to  touch  on  the  way  up  the  moun- 
170 


A    MID-PACIFIC    PAGEANT 

tain,  stands  on  the  brink  of  the  crater  and  eats  them, 
scornfully  tossing  the  stones  into  the  lake  of  fire 
and  crying  "Jehovah  is  my  God!"  The  great  de 
fiance  is  accomplished  and  the  power  of  Pele  over 
the  souls  of  men  is  broken.  Tennyson  wrote  one 
of  his  latest  poems,  Kapiolani,  on  this  theme. 

(But  remember,  reader,  what  happened  only  a 
few  years  ago  in  the  wonderful  Bishop  Museum, 
where  the  antiquities  of  the  island  are  collected. 
A  miniature  heiau, — temple  of  the  old  gods, — was 
set  up  in  the  central  hall.  It  was  almost  completed; 
council-chamber  of  the  priests,  enclosure  walled 
with  blocks  of  lava,  black  altar  overshadowed  by 
grinning  idols, — all  done  but  the  slab  for  human 
sacrifice.  A  Hawaiian  youth,  working  upon  the 
roof,  stepped  by  accident  on  the  glass  skylight  of 
the  hall,  and  fell  through.  His  head  was  shattered 
on  the  altar,  his  blood  stained  the  sands  around  it. 
Crowds  of  the  Hawaiians  came  to  look  at  the  place. 
They  shook  their  heads  gravely  and  whispered  one 
to  another:  "That  was  the  only  way, — no  human 
sacrifice,  no  temple !") 

Come  back  to  the  pageant  on  the  sunny  hillside. 
The  four  remaining  pictures  display  the  reign  of 
law  under  the  Magna  Charta  of  King  Kamehameha 
171 


CAMP-FIRES 

III;  the  development  of  modern  industries;  the 
union  of  Hawaii  with  America  in  1898,  and  a  review 
of  the  progress  of  a  century.  There  is  considerable 
allegory  in  the  presentation;  but  the  redeeming 
touch  of  reality  is  ever  present  in  the  fact  that  the 
chief  actors  are  the  descendants  of  the  missionaries 
and  of  the  Hawaiians  whom  they  came  so  far  to 
teach. 

In  the  last  scene  more  than  two  thousand  people, 
from  all  the  Christian  Schools  and  the  so-called 
"constructive  agencies"  of  all  races  on  the  islands, 
take  part.  With  waving  flags  and  many-colored 
banners  they  stream  up  the  green  hill.  Forming 
a  huge  open  triangle,  with  the  point  toward  the 
great  cross  at  the  top,  the  living  symbol  hangs  poised 
in  the  light  of  the  descending  sun.  The  palms  wave 
and  rustle  in  the  breeze.  The  white  surf  murmurs 
on  the  distant  reef.  The  blue  Pacific  heaves  and 
sparkles  far  away.  The  light  clouds  drift  across 
the  turquoise  sky.  Over  the  fair  stage  and  the 
finished  pageant  sounds  Haydn's  glorious  hymn, 
"The  Heavens  Are  Telling  the  Glory  of  God." 

Shall  I  leave  my  story  of  pictures,  impressions, 
memories,  and  hopes  in  Hawaii,  just  there?  What 
can  I  add  to  it  that  may  not  darken  counsel  by 
words  without  knowledge? 

172 


A    MID-PACIFIC    PAGEANT 

The  beautiful  territory  in  the  sea  is  full  of  people 
now,  gathered  from  many  lands,  speaking  diverse 
tongues,  and  thinking  different  thoughts, — Ha- 
waiians,  and  half-Hawaiians,  Caucasians,  Filipinos, 
Koreans,  Chinese,  and  one  hundred  and  twenty 
thousand  Japanese, — as  many  from  Japan  as  from 
any  four  of  the  other  races.  Problems  of  race- 
mixture,  of  education,  of  capital  and  labor,  of  civic 
progress  or  reaction,  of  democratic  government 
without  class  tyranny,  must  be  met  and  solved. 

The  people  of  Hawaii  have  their  work  cut  out 
for  them.  The  Government  of  the  United  States 
must  stand  by  them  steadily.  There  will  be  showers, 
storms,  tempests  of  unrest;  but  I  think  there  will 
be  no  cataclysm  of  destruction.  The  spirit  which 
guided  the  missionaries  will  prove  equal  to  its  new 
tasks.  And  in  due  time  there  will  be  a  new  star,  a 
bright  tranquil  all-Pacific  star,  in  the  flag  of  the 
United  States  of  America. 


173 


XII 
JAPONICA 

THE  plan  was  to  take  Paula  to  Japan,  in  fulfil 
ment  of  a  promise  I  made  her  when  she  was  a  little 
tiny  daughter;  to  have  a  brief,  glorious  vacation 
there,  with  some  collateral  trout-fishing;  and  then 
to  come  home  and  write  a  luminous,  comprehensive, 
conclusive  monograph  on  the  Japanese  Problem. 

This  well-laid  plan  went  "a-gley."  The  first 
part  of  the  programme  rolled  off  splendidly.  But 
now  I  come  to  the  second  part  and  find  it  can't  be 
done.  I  know  too  much  and  too  little. 

Japan  is  no  longer  a  mere  name  to  me:  it  is  a  real 
country,  a  wonderful  land,  a  great  nation.  Its  very 
simplicity  makes  it  hard  to  comprehend  and  ex 
plain.  The  Far  Eastern  Question  is  too  large  to 
be  solved  by  an  anthropological  dogma,  or  settled 
by  a  snappy  phrase. 

"The  Yellow  Peril"  is  an  invention  worthy  of  the 

yellow   press.      The    writers   who   deal    with    this 

nightmare  kind  of  stuff,  like  Houston  Chamberlain 

and  Karl   Pearson   and  the  rest,   are  intellectual 

174 


JAPONICA 

neurotics,   very  jumpy   and   with   a   subconscious 
homicidal  tendency.    You  would  not  trust  them  to 
run  a  mowing-machine  or  a  trading-schooner. 
Rudyard  Kipling  was  right  in  saying, 

"(Mi,  East  is  East,  and  West  is  West"- 
but  was  he  right  (except  by  metrics),  in  adding, 
"And  never  the  twain  shall  meet"? 

In  fact  they  have  met  already.  The  temporal  re 
duction  of  the  spatial  globe,  the  commercial  am 
bition  of  the  West,  the  overflow  of  the  crowded 
populations  of  the  East,  have  already  brought  them 
together  on  a  long  line  of  contacts.  The  question 
now  is  how  shall  they  live  and  work  together  so  as 
to  promote  the  welfare  and  true  happiness  of  the 
world. 

This  is  not  a  question  to  be  decided  offhand,  even 
by  the  youngest  and  most  cocksure  of  anthropolo 
gists.  It  must  be  worked  out  slowly,  with  patient 
good-will,  and  careful  application  of  old,  general, 
well-tried  principles  of  reason  and  justice.  Solvitur 
ambulando. 

So  I  have  joyfully  jettisoned  the  idea  of  that  con 
vincing  monograph  on  the  Japanese  Problem.  Sit- 
175 


CAMP-FIRES 

ting  here  at  the  wide  window  of  my  little  bunga 
low  on  the  Maine  coast,  looking  out  over  fir-clad 
islands,  blue  sea,  and  mountain-shores  (which  re 
mind  me  vividly  of  Japan),  I  shall  only  try  to  sketch 
a  few  memories  of  our  journey  in  that  delectable 
island.  The  title  of  the  rambling  paper  is  Japonica, 
which  means,  "things  of  or  pertaining  to  Japan." 

TOKYO   IN  THE   RAIN 

Coming  into  Yokohama  in  one  of  the  fine  Toyo 
Kisen  ships,  on  a  gray  dripping  day,  we  saw  little 
to  interest  us,  except  the  home-coming  joy  of  our 
Japanese  fellow  passengers,  children  and  all.  We 
wondered  why  they  should  love  such  a  wet,  drab 
country. 

Tokyo  did  not  enlighten  us.  It  is  big  without 
grandeur:  a  wide-spread,  flat,  confused  city,  with 
interesting  and  even  picturesque  spots  in  it,  art 
treasures  hidden  in  museums  and  private  houses, 
some  fifteen  hundred  Buddhist  temples  and  Shinto 
shrines  (a  few  of  which  are  noteworthy,)  a  hundred 
and  twenty-five  Christian  churches,  and  many 
gardens  lovely  even  in  the  rain. 

The  warm  hospitality  of  the  accomplished  Amer 
ican  Ambassador,  the  Japanese  Foreign  Minister, 
176 


JAPONICA 

the  cordial  missionaries  of  the  great  Methodist 
schools  at  Aoyama  Gakuin,  Doctor  and  Mrs.  Corell 
of  the  Episcopal  Church,  and  many  other  friends 
old  and  new;  the  comfort  of  the  Imperial  Hotel  and 
the  intelligent  and  informing  conversation  of  its 
manager  Mr.  Hayashi,  whom  I  had  known  years 
ago  as  a  student  in  New  York;  the  amusement  of 
expeditions  through  the  crowded,  many-colored 
street  called  the  Ginza;  the  pathetic  interest  of  a 
visit  to  the  huge  shabby-splendid  temple  of  Asakusa 
Kwannon,  most  popular  of  city  fanes — these  were 
consolations  and  entertainments  for  which  we  were 
grateful. 

But  they  did  not  quite  lift  us  out  of  the  depression 
of  a  rainy  week  in  Tokyo.  The  air  was  dead,  streets 
mud,  cherry-blossoms  fallen.  So  we  determined  to 
cut  loose  from  the  capital  and  go  up  to  Nikko, 
weather  permitting  or  not. 

BED  TEMPLES  AND  TALL  TREES 

Five  hours  on  a  comfortable  railway  carried  us 
northward  through  a  coastal  plain  of  small  square 
fields  of  rice  and  wheat,  barley  and  millet,  rape, 
radishes,  onions,  and  taro,  all  carefully  brought  up 
by  hand;  then  eastward,  through  a  country  of  rising 
177 


CAMP-FIRES 

foot-hills  with  horizontal  villages  and  farmhouses 
tucked  away  among  the  trees  and  every  inch  of 
valley-bottom  cultivated  to  the  limit;  and  so  at 
last,  through  copses  of  cherry  and  maple  and  pine, 
splashed  with  rose-pink  of  wild  azaleas,  to  the  fa 
mous  avenue  of  tall  Cryptameria  Japonica  leading 
up  to  the  scarlet  shrines  of  Nikko. 

It  is  a  small  mountain  town,  whose  name  means 
"sunny  splendor,"  but  whose  glory  is  nested  in 
coverts  of  evergreen  shade. 

The  red-lacquered  bridge  that  springs  with  a 
delicate,  effortless  curve  across  the  rushing  Daiya- 
gawa  at  the  upper  end  of  the  village,  is  too  sacred 
for  common  use.  Only  Imperial  Envoys  and  High 
Priests  and  Holy  Pilgrimages  twice  a  year  may 
tread  it.  But  they  say  that  bold  village  boys  on 
dark  nights  climb  the  secluding  gates  and  scamper 
swiftly  over  the  forbidden  arch. 

The  temples  are  all  on  the  north  side  of  the 
stream;  terraced  on  the  steep  hillside  that  rises  to 
ward  the  snow-capped  range  of  Nantai-san:  em 
bowered  in  a  sacred  grove  more  majestic  than 
Dodona.  The  stately  sugi,  sisters  to  the  giant 
sequoia  of  California,  are  the  pillars  of  the  green 
roof.  Russet-trunked  hinoki,  with  cypress-like  foli- 
178 


JAPONICA 

age,  and  plumy  retinosporas,  are  scattered  through 
the  forest.  In  the  more  open  spaces  are  budding 
maples  and  birches.  In  the  courtyards  double- 
cherries  are  in  radiant  bloom.  Far  and  wide  the 
ground  is  spread  with  soft  moss  and  feathery  ferns. 
Amid  all  this  natural  splendor,  so  tranquil  and  so 
rich,  the  temples  stand  on  their  gray  stone  terraces, 
adorned  with  opulence  of  art  and  man's  device. 

The  prevailing  color  is  a  deep  Indian  red.  But 
there  is  not  a  hue  of  the  rainbow  that  is  not  lavished 
somewhere  on  carved  rafter  or  columned  gateway, 
pierced  screen  or  panelled  ceiling,  treasure-house, 
baldachin,  drum-tower  or  bell-tower.  The  spirit  of 
the  grotesque  runs  riot  in  the  portrayal  of  unknown 
animals  and  supernatural  beings.  But  realism  has 
its  turn  in  graphic  portraits  of  familiar  birds  and 
beasts,  like  Sakai's  twelve  hawks,  and  the  "sleep 
ing  cat"  of  Hidari  Jingoro,  which  makes  you  drowsy 
to  look  at  it. 

Nothing  "towers"  at  Nikko,  except  the  trees  and 
the  one  stately  vermeil  pagoda.  The  temples  are 
more  broad  than  lofty.  Their  green-bronze  roofs, 
curving  gently  outward,  project  in  wide  eaves. 
Their  doors  and  beams  and  ridge-poles  are  adorned 
with  bosses,  rosettes,  and  hinges  of  gold  or  gleaming 
179 


CAMP-FIRES 

black  metal.  They  have  the  effect  of  immense 
jewel-boxes,  covered  with  decoration  and  crammed 
with  treasures. 

God  made  the  forest.  Then  man  said,  "Let  us 
see  what  I  can  do."  So  he  made  the  shrines. 

They  are  in  effect  the  mausolea  of  two  famous 
Japanese  warriors  and  rulers. 

The  eastern  and  more  elaborate  group  is  dedi 
cated  to  leyasu,  the  first  Shogun  of  the  Tokugawa 
clan,  a  great  general,  mighty  hunter,  and  patron  of 
the  fine  arts.  He  pacified  Japan  by  killing  his 
enemies  in  1600,  and  began  that  long  regime  of 
seclusion  and  comparative  tranquillity  which  lasted 
until  the  downfall  of  the  Shogunate  in  1867. 

The  western  group  belongs  to  lemitsu,  his  grand 
son,  and  is  considered  less  important.  To  us  it 
seemed  no  less  attractive,  perhaps  because  we  went 
there  on  a  sunshiny  day,  when  the  double-cherries 
were  in  glory  around  the  old  Futa-ara  shrine,  and 
the  clear  mountain  rivulets  were  sparkling  through 
the  temple  compound  and  overflowing  the  granite 
water-basins  in  thin  sheets  like  liquid  glass. 

Three  days  we  spent  in  roaming  up  and  down 
these  terraces,  through  rain  and  shine;  and  all  the 
time  thousands  of  Japanese  men,  women,  and  chil- 
180 


JAPONICA 

dren,  pilgrims  or  excursionists,  were  coining  and 
going,  gazing  and  wondering,  listening  devoutly  to 
the  discourse  of  their  guides. 

The  holy  of  holies  of  the  leyasu  temples  was 
opened  to  us  by  special  permit  from  the  Abbot.  It 
was  so  rich  that  I  can't  remember  much  of  it. 

But  I  remember  that  outside  the  Honden  was  a 
little  pavilion  tenanted  by  an  old-maidenish  priest 
ess,  very  small  and  dainty  in  crimson  kirtle  and 
snowy  cap  and  surplice.  At  the  request  of  visitors 
she  would  rise  from  her  meditative  seat  on  the  floor 
and  perform  a  quaint,  decorous,  graceful  dance  "to 
|  drive  away  the  evil  spirits."  She  was  of  an  in 
scrutable  age;  but  a  youthful  soul  smiled  through 
the  lattice  of  her  gravity;  her  steps  and  motions 
were  sure  and  supple.  She  carried  a  fan  in  one 
id  and  a  softly,  silverly  tinkling  instrument  in  the 
•other.  These  she  waved  toward  us  thrice  at  certain 
irns  in  the  performance.  It  was  fascinating. 
We  came  back  when  no  one  was  looking  and  per- 
led  her  by  silver  inducements  to  do  it  again 
|  and  again.  Each  time  her  smile  was  a  little  brighter. 
'I  don't  feel  any  evil  spirits  coming  or  going,"  said 
*aula,  "but  I  simply  must  get  the  steps  of  that 
ice." 

181 


CAMP-FIRES 

HIGHLAND    WATERS 

All  around  Nikko  there  are  fine  waterfalls, - 
score  of  them  within  easy  walking  distance.  In  the 
mountains  beyond  there  are  many  lakes,  two  of 
which  have  a  certain  renown.  Chusenji,  the  larger, 
nearly  4,500  feet  above  the  sea,  is  a  modest  summer 
resort.  Yumoto,  more  than  5,000  feet  up,  is  smaller 
and  hardly  frequented  at  all  except  for  the  hot  sul 
phur  baths  at  the  head  of  the  lake.  To  these  high 
land  waters  we  resolved  to  go. 

The  motor  road  for  some  three  miles  followed  the 
broad  stony  bed  of  the  Daiya-gawa.  There  had 
been  a  spate  a  few  days  before,  which  carried  away 
the  smaller  bridges.  Gangs  of  coolies  were  deftly 
rebuilding  them  with  bamboo  as  we  passed.  Pres 
ently  the  valley  narrowed,  the  road  gave  out,  and 
we  began  to  foot  it  on  the  'rickshaw  path.  Steep 
cliffs  overshadowed  us.  Cascades  on  tributary 
streams  trailed  their  white  scarves  from  shoulders 
of  the  hills.  The  path  zigzagged  up  the  mountain 
side.  Three  or  four  rustic  tea-houses,  perched  at 
convenient  distances,  commanded  gorgeous  views 
down  the  valley.  The  main  river  roared  far  below. 

But  the  memorable  beauty  of  that  breath-taking 
182 


JAPONICA 

climb  was  the  flood  of  wild  azaleas  streaming  down 
every  hillside  through  the  lace-leafy  woods  of  early 
spring.  From  pale  rose  to  deep  flame,  from  rich 
mauve  to  faintest  pink,  their  color  shaded  and 
shimmered,  now  massed  along  a  level  ridge,  now 
pouring  down  a  rocky  slope — a  glory  no  more  won 
derful,  but  more  delicate  and  entrancing  than  the 
giant  rhododendrons  blooming  along  a  Pennsylvania 
brook,  or  the  high  laurels  beside  a  little  river  of 
South  Jersey. 

Useless  plants,  all  of  them,  except  to  the  soul  of 
man! 

Finally  topping  the  crest,  we  came  through  a 
level  wood  of  birch  and  maple,  to  the  head  of  the 
famous  Kegon  Cataract  where  the  Daiya-gawa 
rushes  from  the  lake  through  a  ten-foot  rift  in  the 
rock,  and  plunges  straight  down  two  hundred  and 
fifty  feet  into  the  churning  pool  below.  The  clouds 
of  spray,  the  ceaseless  thunder,  the  dizzying  change 
of  the  fall  from  swift  motion  to  seeming  immobility, 
were  bewildering  and  benumbing.  Hundreds  of  hap 
less  Japanese  lovers,  bent  on  suicide,  have  thought 
this  a  fitting  place  to  leap  out  of  life  into  Nirvana. 

Chusenji  is  a  lovely  lake.  High  hills  embrace  it. 
Nantai-san  soars  above  it.  Bird-peopled  woods  en- 
183 


CAMP-FIRES 

circle  it,  except  at  the  outlet,  where  there  is  a  small 
village  with  half  a  dozen  big  Japanese  inns  on  one 
bank  of  the  stream  and  the  Lakeside  Hotel  on  the 
other.  It  is  a  comfortable  hostelry — Japanese  ex 
terior,  European  furnishing.  We  were  the  only 
staying  guests,  and  well  cared  for  by  the  landlord 
and  his  whole  family — including  two  little  Breath 
less  Boys,  who  did  everything  on  the  full  run,  and 
made  up  for  their  blunders  by  smiling  good-will. 

Yumoto  is  a  very  different  lake,  more  Alpine, 
more  surprising.  It  lies  on  the  knees  of  the  moun 
tain-gods,  like  a  beautiful  fairy  child.  Primeval 
pine-trees  form  a  dense  grove  round  the  lower  part 
of  the  lake;  steaming  sulphur  springs  issue  from  the 
bare  slopes  at  the  upper  end.  At  the  very  foot 
there  is  a  tiny  islet,  dividing  the  clear  green  water, 
which  drops  straightaway  over  the  cliff  in  a  broad, 
wrinkled,  rippling  curtain,  like  white  watered-silk, 
two  hundred  feet  long. 

In  the  green  dell  below,  perhaps  a  hundred  yards 
from  the  fall,  a  fine  pool  has  formed,  with  a  large 
foam-covered  backwater  on  the  opposite  side  of  the 
stream.  Arriving  there  at  twilight  one  evening  in 
mid-May,  after  a  seven-mile  tramp,  Paula  and  I 
could  not  bear  to  push  on  without  trying  our  luck. 
184 


JAPONICA 

The  three-ounce  rod  sent  the  tiny  "Queen  of  the 
Water"  and  "Royal  Coachman"  fifty  feet  across 
the  stream,  to  the  edge  of  the  foam.  The  white 
sheet  was  broken  by  the  tail  of  a  fish.  A  quick 
strike  hooked  him.  He  rushed  gamely  down  the 
rapids,  played  hard  for  a  good  quarter  of  an  hour, 
and  then  came  to  the  net, — a  plump,  American 
brook-trout  of  a  pound  and  a  quarter  weight.  Thrice 
the  performance  was  repeated  before  the  night  fell. 
Then  we  climbed  the  steep  ascent,  and  trudged 
over  snow-drifts  in  the  dark  pine-wood,  and  through 
the  sulphur-scented  moorland,  to  the  little  Nanma 
Inn,  where  we  found  a  warm  Japanese  welcome  and 
had  the  whole  doll-house  at  our  disposal. 

Three  days  we  fished  that  stream  between  Yu- 
moto  and  Chusenji,  winding  along  the  edge  of  a 
wild  Alpine  plain  covered  with  reeds  and  bamboo- 
grass.  The  fish  were  plentiful, — rainbows,  and 
fontinalis,  and  pink-finned  native  trout;  but  the 
water  was  too  high  and  drumlie  for  fly-fishing.  My 
average  was  fifteen  fish  a  day. 

Our  guide  was  a  cheerful  Japanese  boatman 
named  Ochiai,  or  something  like  that.  He  knew  ten 
or  twelve  words  of  English,  and  was  a  passionate 
bait-fisher  and  a  thorough  gentleman.  I  remember 
185 


CAMP-FIRES 

the  night  when  we  arrived  at  the  hamlet  of  Shobu- 
no-hama  in  a  pelting  storm.  He  introduced  us  to 
the  humble  cottage  of  a  friend,  where  we  sheltered 
beside  the  family-fire  of  charcoal  while  the  boat 
was  being  prepared  to  take  us  down  the  lake.  Hot 
tea  was  served,  as  a  matter  of  course.  When  we 
scrambled  down  to  the  skiff,  Ochiai  brought  up  a 
dripping,  apologetic  peddler  with  a  huge  pack,  and 
explained  politely,  —  "Zis  gent'man  wet,  —  Chu- 
senji?"  We  took  him  in,  and  the  boatman  sculled 
slowly  down  to  the  foot  of  the  lake,  while  Paula-san 
and  I  sang  college  songs  to  keep  ourselves  warm. 

THE  HEART'S  CAPITAL  OF  JAPAN 

Kyoto,  with  its  450,000  inhabitants,  lies  in  the 
fertile  Yamashiro  plain,  ringed  by  green  and  lofty 
hills.  For  many  centuries  it  was  the  seat  of  the 
Imperial  Court,  until  Tokyo  displaced  it  in  1868. 
But  it  still  remains,  I  think,  the  chief  city  in  the 
heart  of  Japan. 

Here  the  ancient  arts  and  ways  are  more  purely 
preserved;  here  the  old  traditions  centre;  here  a 
visitor  does  not  have  to  witness,  as  Lafcadio  Hearn 
said  in  his  last  days  of  Tokyo,  "the  sorry  sight  of 
one  civilization  trampling  the  life  out  of  another." 
186 


JAPONICA 

Mind  you,  I  don't  say  that  what  is  taking  place  in 
Tokyo  and  other  great  seaport  towns  is  wrong  or 
evitable.  I  only  say  that  if  you  want  the  flavor 
and  the  tone  of  the  original  Japan,  you  must  see 
Kyoto,  and  smaller  cities  of  that  type,  and,  above 
all,  the  countryside. 

We  spent  a  fortnight  in  and  around  Kyoto,  with 
headquarters  at  the  Miyako  Hotel,  where  the  con 
versation  of  the  manager,  Mr.  Hamaguchi,  was 
delightful  and  illuminating.  He  told  us  the  meaning 
of  many  things  in  Japanese  life  and  philosophy, 
and  best  of  all  he  advised  us  what  to  skip  in  our 
sightseeing. 

All  kinds  of  pictures  from  that  fortnight  are  stored 
in  memory's  "go-down."  I  can  take  out  one  after 
another  and  hang  it  on  the  wall,  as  a  Japanese  would 
do  with  his  kakemonos. 

There  is  the  famous  Cherry  Blossom  Dance,  in 
the  biggest  tea-house  on  the  Kamo-gawa,  where 
forty  geishas  weave  intricate,  slow  designs  of  color 
and  movement  on  the  stage,  while  a  double-dozen 
of  women  musicians  twang  samisens,  slap  drums, 
and  chant  weird  nasal  songs.  There  is  the  stately 
Noh  Drama,  performed  on  the  century-old  stage 
of  the  Nishi  Hongwanji  temple,  by  actors  who  have 
187 


CAMP-FIRES 

inherited  their  calling  and  traditions  through  genera 
tions, — gorgeous  costumes,  symbolic  action,  classic 
dialogue,  mostly  tragic  themes,  with  some  con 
secrated  comic  episodes,  the  chorus  intoning  a  run 
ning  commentary,  the  absorbed  audience  following 
the  play  with  their  books, — it  is  a  highly  intellectual 
and  at  the  same  time  eye-appealing  performance, 
something  like  the  revival  of  a  Greek  play  at  Ox 
ford  or  Harvard,  yet  different  as  the  East  differs 
from  the  West.  There  are  visits  to  a  few  well-chosen 
temples.  The  golden  splendor  of  the  great  Chion-in. 
The  tranquil  charm  of  Kurodani  on  its  shady  hill, 
with  its  long  inner  corridors  where  the  "nightingale 
floors"  twitter  beneath  your  stockinged  feet,  its 
rooms  adorned  with  rare  paintings  and  silken 
broideries,  and  its  secluded  garden  where  the  iris 
is  in  bloom  around  the  pond.  The  delicate  beauty 
of  the  Golden  Pavilion  and  the  Silver  Pavilion  in 
their  landscape  setting;  and  one  little  temple  among 
the  trees,  whose  name  I  never  knew,  but  which 
Paula  said  she  loved  "because  it  seemed  so  lonely, 
and  nobody  told  us  to  go  there." 

Certain  scenes  and  incidents  are  vivid  in   my 

mind.     Visits  to  workshops,  where  deft  Japanese 

fingers  are  busy  with  delicate  work  of  tapestry, 

188 


JAPONICA 

damascene,  lacquer,  and  carving.  Preaching  in  the 
little  Union  Church,  and  lecturing  to  a  thousand 
eager  students  at  Doshisha  University.  Luncheon 
with  Miss  Denton  of  the  Girls'  School,  that  won 
derful  American  lady  who  knows  Kyoto  better 
than  the  Japanese  and  whom  they  all  love.  "Cere 
monial  tea"  at  Doctor  Saiki's  house,  where  the 
gentle  daughter  of  Nippon  who  performs  the  gracious 
ritual  is  the  mother  of  nine  and  looks  no  older  than 
one  of  her  own  children. 

Of  all  Kyoto  days  none  was  brighter  than  that 
on  which  we  walked  with  the  Shivelys  over  the 
sacred  mountain  of  Hiei-san.  The  long  trail  up 
through  the  steep,  stately  forest;  the  ancient  tem 
ples  and  monasteries  hidden  on  the  heights  where 
the  fighting  monks  of  Buddha  used  to  assemble 
their  bands  to  raid  the  capital;  the  basket  lunch 
beside  a  cold  streamlet  in  a  glen  below  the  summit; 
the  rapid  descent  to  Lake  Biwa,  with  rapturous 
views  on  the  way;  the  boat-ride  home  on  the  swift 
canal,  half  through  a  dark  tunnel,  half  in  broad 
evening  sunlight,  high  on  the  hillside  among  wild 
azaleas, — that  was  a  memorable  day. 

But  a  single  hour  in  another  day  stands  out  as 
clear.  It  was  when  I  climbed  with  a  Japanese  friend 
189 


CAMP-FIRES 

to  visit  the  Christian  cemetery  on  the  hillside  above 
Nanzen-ji.  The  only  approach  is  by  a  steep  foot 
path.  Here,  with  others  of  like  faith,  confessed 
or  secret,  is  buried  Joseph  Neesima,  the  father  of 
Doshisha.  From  this  quiet  hillside  no  doubt  he 
often  looked  down  upon  the  great  city  spread  out 
below  him,  and,  like  his  Master,  longed  and  yearned 
for  its  peace.  Here  he  sleeps  quietly,  while  his  work 
goes  on. 

TO  THE  CITY  OF  LANTERNS 

This  was  a  roundabout  journey  which  we  made 
with  a  Japanese  friend  and  scholar,  Doctor  Harada, 
as  our  genial  comrade  to  guide  us  in  the  ways  of 
Japanese  inns  and  explain  things  seen  and  heard 
on  the  road. 

First  we  spent  a  day  and  night  in  Yamada-Ise, 
visiting  the  two  chief  shrines  of  the  Shinto  religion. 
Like  almost  all  sacred  places  in  Japan  they  have 
a  splendid  natural  setting. 

Unlike  Buddhist  temples,  however,  the  Shinto 
shrines  are  very  simple,  even  austere.  Built  of 
plain  wood,  completely  renewed  every  twenty  years, 
without  painting  or  ornament  (except  some  brass 
fastenings  with  crests),  they  are  distinguished  by 
primitive  features  of  their  architecture,  such  as 
190 


JAPONICA 

the  crossing  of  the  end-rafters,  which  project  above 
the  roof  like  the  poles  of  a  wigwam.  In  the  centre 
of  the  inner  shrine  hangs  a  mirror,  the  symbol  of 
Amaterasu,  the  sun-goddess,  worshipped  as  the  an 
cestor  of  the  first  Mikado  and  of  the  pure  Japa 
nese  race. 

Shintoism  is  the  old  national  religion  of  Japan, 
though  there  are  many  more  Buddhists  than  Shin- 
toists,  and  the  two  faiths  have  been  strangely  crossed. 
The  core  of  Shinto  is  ancestor-worship  and  patriot 
ism.  Mr.  Hamaguchi  said  to  me  one  night:  "In 
China  they  worship  their  ancestors  dead.  In  Japan 
we  worship  our  ancestors  through  our  children. 
Suppose  you  want  to  move  graveyard  to  make 
way  for  needed  railroad.  Chinese  say,  'Never, 
our  ancestors  forbid!'  Japanese  say,  'Yes,  move 
carefully,  with  reverence;  railroad  good  for  our 
children.'  " 

You  will  usually  find  chickens  kept  at  Shinto 
shrines,  because  of  the  cock  that  crows  to  make 
the  sun  rise. 

Next  we  went  to  Toba,  a  picturesque  seashore 

town,  known  for  its  ship-builders,  fishermen,  and 

women  pearl-divers.     We  took  two  of  the  divers, 

plump,  good-humored  little  creatures,  out  to  the 

191 


CAMP-FIRES 

fishing-grounds.  They  put  on  white  caps  and  huge 
water-goggles,  stood  up  and  dropped  their  kimonos, 
and  then  slipped  quietly  overboard  in  their  white 
cotton  shirts  and  drawers,  taking  their  floating 
tubs  with  them.  After  a  little  wheezing  and  many 
curious  noises,  they  gave  a  sharp,  indrawn  whistle, 
turned  over,  and  went  down  like  small  white  seals. 
They  brought  up  no  pearls,  but  many  lobsters,  star 
fish,  sea-urchins,  and  other  marine  curios.  The 
best  pearl-fishing  is  at  Mikimoto's  place,  a  few  miles 
farther  along  the  coast. 

In  the  afternoon  we  climbed  Weather  Hill  and 
had  a  view  finer  than  that  from  Pemetic  on  Mt. 
Desert :  eastward,  Ise  Bay  and  the  swarm  of  islands 
and  the  blue  Pacific;  westward,  a  far-rolling  sea 
of  wild  mountains  and  forests. 

Our  last  point  was  Gifu,  the  city  of  lanterns.  Here 
they  make  delicious  persimmon  confitures,  delicate 
silk  crape,  the  strongest  paper  in  the  world,  fans, 
umbrellas,  and  paper  lanterns  light  as  soap-bubbles 
and  lovely  as  campanula  bells.  We  stayed  at  the 
"Well  of  Jewels  Inn,"  and  went  out  at  night  to  see 
the  celebrated  cormorant  fishing,  a  craft  which 
has  been  practised  here  for  more  than  ten  centuries 
by  the  same  families  of  fishermen. 
192 


JAPONICA 

The  moon  was  rising  over  the  mountains.  The 
swift,  clear  river  ran  half  glittering  and  half  dark. 
Our  barge  was  covered  with  an  awning  and  lit  with 
lanterns.  We  poled  two  or  three  miles  up  the  river 
and  found  five  other  lanterned  barges  waiting  be 
side  a  gravelly  bank  between  two  rapids.  I  began 
to  think  it  would  be  a  "tourist  show,"  a  fake. 

But  a  little  before  ten  o'clock  we  saw  moving 
lights  up  the  river.  Six  fishing-boats  came  sweep 
ing  down  with  the  current,  an  iron  cresset  full  of 
blazing  pine-knots  projecting  from  the  bow  of  each. 
We  joined  one  of  them  and  drifted  with  it. 

In  front  stood  the  master  fisherman,  a  tall, 
bronzed  youth,  naked  to  the  waist,  with  a  long  skirt 
of  straw  girt  about  his  loins.  The  ungainly  cor 
morants, — black  bodies,  white  throats,  and  hooked 
bills, — stood  along  the  gunwale,  six  on  a  side.  A 
ring  of  fibre  around  the  lower  part  of  the  neck  pre 
vents  the  bird  from  swallowing  fish  irrecoverably, 
and  a  fibre  rein  twelve  feet  long  serves  to  guide  and 
retrieve  him.  The  fisherman  pushes  the  team  off 
in  order,  the  captain  last.  Then  they  dive,  swim 
under  water  with  feet  and  wings,  dart  hither  and 
thither  ahead  of  the  boat,  come  up  again  and 
again  with  a  five  or  six  inch  trout  held  crosswise  in 
193 


CAMP-FIRES 

the  bill,  gulp  it  down,  dive  again,  and  keep  on  till 
their  pouches  are  full.  Then  the  master,  clucking 
and  whistling  to  his  team,  lifts  one  bird  after  an 
other  to  the  gunwale,  taps  him  on  the  throat  to 
make  him  give  up  his  catch,  and  drops  him  over 
once  more. 

So  we  drifted  on  with  splashing,  shouting,  singing, 
the  torches  flaring,  the  birds  eager  and  skilful,  the 
master  deft  and  imperturbable,  until  we  came  to 
the  end  of  the  fishing-grounds.  Then  the  birds 
had  their  collars  taken  off  and  were  plentifully  fed 
with  the  smaller  fishes,  and  we  all  went  home.  The 
catch  that  night  must  have  run  well  up  in  the  thou 
sands.  We  had  some  the  next  morning  for  break 
fast, — delicious.  Paula  said, — well,  no  matter  what 
she  said.  They  were  perfectly  good  pink  fish. 

TOKYO   REVISITED 

Our  second  week  in  Tokyo  was  more  serious  and 
joyful  than  the  first.  The  sun  was  shining,  the  air 
revived.  There  were  social  engagements  of  a  real 
pleasure.  A  snug  tiffin  with  Secretary  Hofer  in 
his  new  bachelor  house;  a  fine  banquet  (with  theat 
rical  entertainment),  given  me  by  six  of  my  former 
Japanese  students  at  Princeton,  in  the  Maple  Club; 
194 


JAPONICA 

an  academic  luncheon  presided  over  by  Baron 
Yamagawa,  President  of  the  Imperial  University, 
in  the  Botanical  Gardens;  a  delightful,  friendly 
feast  made  for  us  by  Madame  Yukio  Ozaki  (wife 
of  the  eloquent  parliamentary  leader,  and  author 
of  those  delightful  English  volumes,  "The  Japanese 
Fairy  Book"  and  "Romances  of  Old  Japan"),  at 
the  "Inn  of  Ten  Thousand  Pines,"  by  the  Sumida- 
gawa;  a  brilliant  dinner  with  Mrs.  Charles  Burnett, 
a  gifted  American  lady  who  lives  very  close  to  the 
heart  of  Japan,  and  whose  charm  brought  to  meet 
us  a  choice  group  of  scholars  and  statesmen,  men  of 
letters  and  affairs. 

In  such  company  one  has  glimpses  of  what  Japan 
really  desires  and  seeks.  I  am  convinced  that  it  is 
not  war,  but  peaceful,  orderly  development,  and 
that  Japan  is  the  natural  leader  for  this  task  in  the 
Far  East. 

There  were  also  academic  engagements  which 
involved  work.  A  lecture  at  Waseda  University, 
founded  by  Japan's  "grand  old  man,"  the  Marquis 
Okuma;  an  address  at  the  fortieth  anniversary  of 
the  Tokyo  Y.  M.  C.  A.;  two  lectures  at  the  Im 
perial  University,  the  first  to  be  given  on  the  "House 
Foundation";  a  luncheon  and  lecture  at  the  Wo- 
195 


CAMP-FIRES 

man's  University,  where  we  had  a  hearty  wel 
come  from  the  president  and  all  the  staff  and  stu 
dents. 

The  attitude  of  the  Japanese  toward  education 
is  fine.  In  the  public  schools  the  enrolment  and 
attendance  are  95  per  cent.  You  see  the  well-trained 
children  on  excursions  with  their  teachers  every 
where,  learning  to  see  and  know  Japan  first.  In 
the  universities  the  eagerness  for  knowledge  is  keen, 
— so  keen  that  perhaps  it  sometimes  turns  its  own 
edge.  Know-it-all  is  a  good  dog,  but  Know-it-well 
is  a  better. 

The  Japanese,  in  fact,  have  many  of  the  Amer 
ican  virtues, — and  faults.  To  think  or  talk  of  them 
as  "brown  monkeys"  is  distinctly  asinine.  They 
have  an  ancient  civilization;  a  wonderful  art  and 
literature;  a  unified  race  whose  spirit  has  never 
been  broken  by  foreign  conquest  or  domination; 
a  habit  of  industry  and  great  gifts  of  manual  skill; 
endurance,  ambition,  versatility,  and  a  sensitive 
temper.  They  laugh  much,  love  their  numerous 
and  delightful  children,  and  have  a  firm  and  pas 
sionate  faith  in  the  future  of  their  country.  They 
are  almost  as  political-minded  as  Americans,  and 
quite  as  honest  as  any  other  commercial  people. 
196 


JAPONICA 

One  word  more.  What  about  the  Pacific  Coast 
and  Japanese  Immigration? 

Only  this ! 

It  is  a  difficult  question.  Within  limits,  I  think 
the  Pacific  Coasters  must  settle  it  for  themselves. 
If  they  do  not  want  Japanese  labor  they  need  not 
have  it.  If  they  want  it  they  must  treat  it  on  the 
principle  of  "the  square  deal." 

The  Californians  must  remember  that  the  Pacific 
has  two  Coasts.  The  friendly  co-operation  of  Great 
Britain,  the  United  States,  and  Japan  is  essential 
to  peace  and  order  in  the  Far  East,  where  our  na 
tion  has  some  possessions  and  many  interests.  And 
the  natural  leader  in  the  Far  East  is  Japan,  because 
she  has  what  China  lacks,  the  instinct  of  self-or 
ganization. 


197 


XIII 
INTERLUDES    ON    THE    KOTO 

I 

THE   RED   BRIDGE  AT   NIKKO 

OVER  the  hurrying  torrent  of  Daiya-gawa, 
Calmly  I  bend  my  bow  of  beauty, 
Curving  from  pillar  to  pillar  of  granite, 
Tranquil  in  the  pride  of  perfection, — • 
I  am  the  Queen-rose  of  all  bridges. 

I  tremble  not  with  the  fury  of  the  current; 
The  turbulent  river  cannot  reflect  me, 
Nor  carry  away  my  lovely  image. 

Holy  and  proud,  I  am  often  lonely, 
When  I  hear  on  the  common  bridge  below  me 
The  pattering  feet  of  people  going  to  and  fro, 
And  the  merry  laughter  of  little  children. 

Come  in  the  night,  you  wild  young  boy, 
And  leave  me  not  untrodden. 
198 


INTERLUDES 
II 

CANDELABRA 

I  LOVE  the  wonder-working  fingers 

Of  Springtime  in  Japan! 

She  weaves  a  priestly  robe  of  green  for  Nature, 

And  broiders  it  with  white  and  rose  and  gold. 

She  lifts  the  veil  of  snow 

From  the  beautiful  mountain-shoulders, 

She  fills  the  holy  places  of  the  forest 

With  psalms  and  canticles  of  praise. 

Incense  of  fragrant  leaves  and  blossoms 

Floats  from  her  footsteps  in  the  temple. 

Where  are  the  candelabra  for  the  altar? 

Behold,  the  fingers  of   Springtime   have   prepared 
them! 

She  has  wrought  silently  in  the  midnight; 

Bending  the  dark  bronze  boughs  of  the  pine-trees 

Outward  and  upward  in  lines  of  beauty. 

On  the  tips  of  all  the  branches,  straight  and  slen 
der, 

Silvery  candles  are  set  in  millions, — 

Every  one  standing  upright, 

Every  one  touched  with  the  white  flame  of  life! 
199 


CAMP-FIRES 
III 

THE   REPOSE   OF  NARA 

ON  the  knees  of  the  ancient  mountains 
Guarding  the  old  Yamato  plain, 
Weary  of  long  war  and  tumult, 
Beautiful  Nara  climbed  up  to  rest. 

The  green  sugi  and  red-bodied  hinoki 
Shelter  her  temples  with  curving  branches: 
April  heaps  white  blossoms  among  them, 
October   lights   them   with   lanterns   of   a   million 
maples. 

Droves  of  dappled  deer  find  sanctuary  in  Nara; 
Processions   of   pilgrims    and    singing    school  chil 
dren 

Wander  and  wonder  through  her  groves, 
While  the  great  bell  of  Buddha 
Booms  the  passing  hours  of  peace. 

Last  of  all  come  the  refugees  of  Russia, 
Flying  from  the  fury  of  the  Red  Terror. 
Dai  Nippon,  whom  they  once  despised  and  hated, 
Welcomes  them  to  the  repose  of  Nara. 
They  are  like  people  walking  in  their  sleep; 
Happy,  if  in  this  dream  they  find  truth! 
200 


INTERLUDES 
IV 

PROMISE-TIME 

IF  Springtime  were  the  only  time 

It  would  not  be  so  dear, — 
The  budding-time,  the  mating-time, 

The  promise-time  o'  the  year. 
But  Summer  comes  with  ripening  heat, 
And  Autumn  with  her  wine-stained  feet, 
And  Winter  to  his  fireside  seat 

Doth  cheerily  call: 

Yet  still  the  dearest  time  of  all, 
Is  the  time  when  nothing  is  complete, — 
The  time  when  hope  and  longing  meet, — 
The  promise-time  o*  the  year. 


MALGRE    CELA 

NEVER  Summer  fair  as  Spring  foretold, 
Never  Autumn  rich  as  Summer  willed  it, 
Never  Winter  gleaned  all  Autumn's  gold, 
Never  Spring  so  late  that  Winter  killed  it. 


201 


CAMP-FIRES 
VI 

WILD   AZALEAS 

WHEN  the  bloom  of  the  cherry  is  gone  from  the 
gardens 

And  all  their  white  flower-drifts  have  melted  away, 

Then  the  wild  azaleas  begin  to  flow  down  the  hill 
sides, — 

Rivers  of  rose  through  the  morning-misty  wood 
land, 

Pools  of  tranquil  flame  under  the  evergreen-trees. 

VII 

THE   SPIRIT    OF  JAPAN 

WHILE  the  broad-boughed  pine  braves  the  ocean 

gale, 

And  the  bamboo  bends  to  the  breath  of  the  vale, 
And  the  cherry  dazzles  the  April  air 
With  a  snow  of  beauty  everywhere, — 
The  Yamato  spirit  shall  endure, 
In  beauty,  grace,  and  strength  secure. 


202 


XIV 

SUICIDAL    TENDENCIES    IN 
DEMOCRACY 


is  a  word  variously  employed. 
It  signifies  a  government,  a  theory,  a  way  of  living, 
and  (like  Boston)  a  state  of  mind.  In  the  United 
States  of  America  it  is  also  used,  and  capitalized, 
to  denote  one  of  the  two  political  parties  which 
alternately  control  and  criticise  the  conduct  of  the 
state.  With  this  last  meaning  the  present  essay 
does  not  deal. 

Toward  the  four  other  significations  of  democ 
racy  I  stand  thus.  As  a  state  of  mind  it  is  whole 
some:  as  a  way  of  living  it  is  convenient,  although 
not  always  the  most  comfortable:  as  a  theory  it 
is  admirable  with  mild  reservations:  as  a  mode  of 
government  it  is  the  most  promising  yet  devised 
by  man. 

This  is  not  as  much  as  to  say  that  it  is  always 
possible  or  even  desirable  for  all  nations  at  all  stages 
of  their  growth.  What  has  been  written  by  Rudyard 
203 


CAMP-FIRES 

Kipling  of  the  Bandar-log  or  commonwealth  of 
monkeys  is  pertinent  also  to  the  Boob-rah  or  regime 
of  the  ignorant  by  force  of  numbers. 

But  granting  a  moderate  degree  of  self-knowledge 
as  a  preparative  for  self-determination,  and  a 
reasonable  consent  to  those  natural  and  moral  laws 
which  cannot  be  altered  by  popular  vote,  prob 
ably  democracy  offers  more  to  man  than  any  other 
way  of  regulating  his  common  affairs. 

It  is  costly  in  discussion  and  debate;  but  by  way 
of  recompense  it  promotes  general  intelligence  and 
the  most  Christian  virtue  of  patience.  It  is  sub 
ject  to  errors;  but  it  has  the  merit  of  bringing  home 
the  responsibility  to  those  who  make  the  mistakes; 
for  where  all  decide,  all  must  share  the  consequences. 

Under  a  rule  in  which  you  yourself  partake,  weak 
complaining  is  a  form  of  self-reproach,  violence  is 
treason,  and  the  only  wisdom  of  the  discontented 
lies  in  the  continued  effort  to  bring  the  majority 
to  a  better  choice.  Thus  democracy,  rightly  con 
sidered,  has  in  itself  something  bracing,  salutary, 
and  educative. 

"Government  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  for 
the  people,"  as  Lincoln  ennobled  it  in  his  imperish 
able  phrase,  has  a  superior  quality  in  its  ideal  of 
204 


TENDENCIES    IN    DEMOCRACY 

perfection.  Even  in  its  imperfection,  (and  as  yet 
the  world  has  seen  no  more,)  it  outranks  the  other 
methods  of  government  by  its  ultimate  intention 
of  appeal  to  reason  and  the  right  mind  in  man. 

Thus  avowing  my  democratic  convictions,  and 
thanking  God  that  he  has  cast  my  lot  under  a  gov 
ernment  which  derives  its  just  powers  from  the 
consent  of  the  governed,  I  feel  bound,  (and  at  lib 
erty,)  to  confess  my  hesitations  and  doubts  con 
cerning  the  modern  presentation  of  democracy  as  a 
substitute  for  religion. 

It  is  a  good  thing,  no  doubt:  but  not  so  good  as 
all  that.  It  has  the  defects  of  its  qualities.  Its 
possibilities  carry  its  perils.  Subject  to  the  infirmi 
ties  of  its  makers,  it  needs  a  corrective  and  a  guide. 
It  is  as  wise  and  just  as  mankind, — no  more. 

Perhaps  they  are  right  who  say  that  it  has  more 
of  wisdom  and  justice  than  any  one  man  can  ever 
have.  But  even  that  collective  sum  is  not  enough. 
For  human  wisdom  has  its  sharp  enclosing  ring; 
and  when  we  pass  that,  we  do  but  find  another 
horizon.  Human  justice  has  a  twist  in  it,  being 
warped  unconsciously  by  our  fond  blindness  to  our 
own  blame,  and  our  failure  to  feel  the  needs  which 
may  explain,  if  not  excuse,  the  faults  of  others. 
205 


CAMP-FIRES 

This  double  defect  is  as  common  in  juries  as  in 
judges. 

To  praise  democracy  overmuch  is  to  invite  a 
scrutiny  of  its  mistakes.  To  trust  it  beyond  its 
ability  to  perform  is  to  court  the  loss  of  all  our 
confidence. 

Do  not  overload  the  ship  which  carries  your  hope. 
Vox  populi,  vox  dei,  says  the  proverb.  Yes,  but 
what  god  is  it  that  thus  speaks?  An  idol  of  the 
market-place,  or  the  True  and  Only  ? 

You  might  think  that  the  new  religion  proposed 
by  Auguste  Comte, — Culte  systtmatique  de  VHu- 
manite, — would  have  been  popular.  Not  so!  For 
the  enthusiasm  of  the  multitude  for  itself,  though 
violent  for  a  time,  is  transitory.  The  hot  fit  passes 
into  the  cold. 

The  crowd,  when  not  hypnotized  by  the  spell 
binder,  or  inflamed  by  the  demagogue,  mistrusts 
itself  even  more  than  the  philosopher  who  knows 
the  common  sense  which  lives  within  its  limitations. 

The  man  in  the  crowd,  pressed  and  incommoded, 
is  conscious  mainly  of  the  deficiencies  of  his  too  near 
neighbor,  and  whispers  to  himself,  "Am  I  to  be 
governed  by  the  likes  of  you?" 

You  may  often  hear  one  say,  in  mock-modest 
206 


TENDENCIES    IN    DEMOCRACY 

self-depreciation,  that  he  belongs  to  the  rank  and 
file.  But  in  his  heart  he  does  not  place  himself  en 
tirely  there.  He  thinks  he  is  a  little  different,  stands 
somewhat  apart,  a  bit  higher. 

This  is  why  even  popular  writers  do  not  fear  to 
abuse  the  multitude,  to  pour  scorn  upon  it,  to  buffet 
it  with  hard  words.  They  know  that  none  of  their 
readers  will  take  offense,  because  none  will  think 
that  he  really  belongs  to  the  multitude. 

Thus  Emerson,  high-handed  republican  that  he 
was,  wrote  in  his  "Considerations  by  the  Way": 
"Leave  this  hypocritical  prating  about  the  masses. 
Masses  are  rude,  lame,  unmade,  pernicious  in  their 
demands  and  influence,  and  need  not  to  be  flattered, 
but  to  be  schooled.  I  wish  not  to  concede  anything 
to  them,  but  to  tame,  drill,  divide,  and  break  them 
up,  and  draw  individuals  out  of  them.  The  worst 
of  charity  is,  that  the  lives  you  are  asked  to  pre 
serve  are  not  worth  preserving.  Masses !  the 
calamity  is  masses.  I  do  not  wish  any  mass  at  all, 
but  honest  men  only,  lovely,  sweet,  accomplished 
women  only,  and  no  shovel-handed,  narrow-brained, 
gin-drinking  million  stockingers  or  lazzaroni  at  all. 
If  government  knew  how,  I  should  like  to  see  it 
check,  not  multiply  the  population.  When  it  reaches 
207 


CAMP-FIRES 

its  true  law  of  action,  every  man  that  is  born  will 
be  hailed  as  essential.  Away  with  this  hurrah  of 
masses,  and  let  us  have  the  considerate  vote  of  single 
men  spoken  on  their  honor  and  their  conscience. 
In  old  Egypt,  it  was  established  law,  that  the  vote 
of  a  prophet  be  reckoned  equal  to  a  hundred  hands. 
I  think  it  was  much  underestimated.  'Clay  and 
clay  differ  in  dignity/  as  we  find  by  our  preferences 
every  day.  What  a  vicious  practice  is  this  of  our 
politicians  at  Washington  pairing  off !  as  if  one  man 
who  votes  wrong,  going  away,  could  excuse  you, 
who  mean  to  vote  right,  for  going  away;  or  as  if 
your  presence  did  not  tell  in  more  ways  than  in 
your  vote.  Suppose  the  three  hundred  heroes  of 
Thermopylae  had  paired  off  with  three  hundred 
Persians;  would  it  have  been  all  the  same  to  Greece, 
and  to  history  ?  " 

Now  whether  this  be  an  example  of  what  George 
Meredith  calls  a  "rough  truth"  or  not,  I  cannot 
say;  but  it  is  certainly  a  specimen  of  plain  dis 
course.  One  would  like  to  know  after  what  election 
in  Massachusetts  Emerson  wrote  it,  or  whether  it 
was  conceived  after  a  confabulation  with  Carlyle  in 
his  "Ercles'  vein." 

But  at  one  point, — the  last, — Emerson  leaves  his 
208 


TENDENCIES    IN    DEMOCRACY 

belaboring  of  the  unconscious  masses,  and  turns  to 
thwack  a  far  more  sensitive  class,  the  politicians. 
And  that,  forsooth,  on  the  score  of  their  old-estab 
lished,  highly  honored,  and  generally  practised  cus 
tom  of  pairing  off !  Here  is  candor  to  the  verge  of 
rashness !  I  reckon,  calculate,  and  guess  the  sage 
of  Concord  heard  from  his  representatives  at  Wash 
ington  about  that  rude  assault.  Thus  I  hear  them 
talk: 

*  Shall  not  a  weary  Congressman  or  Senator  pair 
off  when  he  has  important  business  of  his  own  to 
attend  to,  and  when  a  vote  on  one  side  practically 
cancels  and  annuls  a  vote  on  the  other?  Instead 
of  being  blamed,  should  he  not  rather  be  praised 
for  having  taken  the  pains  to  arrange  a  pair  be 
fore  forsaking  the  high  halls  of  republican  coun 
cil?  Is  not  this  a  pestilent  idealist  who  ventures 
to  set  up  a  higher  standard  of  duty  than  the  con 
venience  or  interest  of  the  men  who  have  been 
honored,  and  so  to  speak  promoted  to  a  kind  of 
nobility,  by  the  people's  choice?' 

A  specious  defense !     Yet  Emerson  was   right. 

The  point  he  makes  against  the  pairing  politicians 

is  that  their  mating  of  opposites  is  productive  of 

mere  negation;    it  is  a  barren  match.     And  this, 

209 


CAMP-FIRES 

mark  you,  because  it  proceeds  upon  the  false  as 
sumption  that  voting  is  the  highest  if  not  the  sole 
function  of  man  in  a  democratic  state,  and  that 
all  votes  are  equal,  not  only  in  the  numerical  count, 
but  also  in  worth  and  significance. 

This  assumption,  if  granted,  would  be  fatal  to 
true  democracy.  It  would  level  down,  not  up;  ren 
der  the  appeal  to  reason  and  the  right  mind  nuga 
tory;  and  consecrate  the  Teller  as  High-Priest  of 
the  God  of  Numbers. 

Yet  it  is  precisely  the  democratic  state  that  seems 
to  breed  this  self -destroying  fallacy  most  frequently 
and  to  its  own  hurt.  One  man,  one  vote,  is  the  mod 
ern  "slogan."  (Silly  word,  beloved  by  advertisers 
of  ready-made  clothing  and  cosmetics,  I  use  thee  in 
derision!)  As  a  protest  against  proved  inequities 
of  suffrage,  like  plural  voting  and  the  disfranchising 
of  women  on  the  ground  of  sex,  the  saying  has  its 
portion  of  truth.  But  push  it  beyond  the  mark, 
infer  from  it  that,  because  the  privilege  of  voting 
works  best  when  equally  conferred  on  all  citizens, 
therefore  all  citizens  and  all  their  votes  have  an 
equal  vital  value,  and  you  propagate  an  absurdity 
which  not  even  the  rugged  digestion  of  democracy 
can  endure. 

210 


TENDENCIES    IN    DEMOCRACY 

In  old  Calvinton,  when  I  was  young,  we  had  a 
professor  who  was  a  saint,  a  sage,  and  a  joy  to  the 
heart.  Every  one  in  the  town  knew  and  loved  him. 
As  he  rode  along  the  main  street  in  his  little  one- 
horse  carryall  on  election  day,  we  would  say,  "  There 
goes  the  old  Doctor  to  vote  the  Republicratic 
ticket."  When  he  had  deposited  his  ballot,  he  would 
come  out,  climb  into  the  back  seat  of  the  wagon,  and 
smilingly  hold  the  reins,  while  his  Irish  coachman 
went  in  to  exercise  the  proud  privilege  of  suffrage. 
As  Pat  emerged  from  the  polls,  he  would  grin,  and 
whisper  behind  the  back  of  his  hand  to  the  by 
standers,  "Begorrah,  oiVe  just  nulligated  ould 
Docther's  vote ! "  But  had  Pat  done  as  much  as 
that?  Neither  he  himself  nor  the  laughing  by 
standers  really  thought  so.  There  was  something 
in  the  example  of  the  wise  old  Doctor  faithfully 
performing  a  simple  duty  of  citizenship  that  counted 
far  beyond  the  ballot  he  had  dropped  in  the  box. 
It  could  not  be  equalled  save  by  a  man  of  equal 
wisdom  and  character. 

Why,  then,  should  those  who  prefer  a  democratic 
form  of  government  and  believe  in  one  man,  one 
vote,  as  the  best  means  of  securing  it,  surcharge  their 
faith  with  inferences  which  are  manifestly  false; 


CAMP-FIRES 

like  the  dogma  that  all  men  have  equal  worth  and 
influence  because  they  have  an  equal  right  to  "life, 
liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness."  The  founders 
of  our  republic  neither  held  nor  practised  that  inane 
creed. 

Such  an  excessive  orthodoxy  has  all  the  vices  of 
a  heresy.  The  preaching  of  it,  either  in  serious 
fanaticism  or  for  campaign  purposes,  injures  and 
imperils  the  republic.  It  is,  in  effect,  an  illustration 
of  the  theme  which  I  have  been  meditating  by  this 
month's  autumnal  camp-fire, — suicidal  tendencies 
in  democracy. 

By  this  phrase  I  do  not  mean  carefully  matured 
purposes  of  self-destruction;  nor  even  sudden  im 
pulses  and  resolves  which  have  that  end  clearly 
in  view  as  a  risk.  They  do  not  fall  under  either 
head  of  Blackstone's  definition  of  felo  de  se  as  one 
who  "deliberately  puts  an  end  to  his  own  existence, 
or  commits  any  unlawful  act  the  consequence  of 
which  is  his  own  death." 

The  tendencies  of  which  I  speak  are  marked  by 
a  lack  of  deliberation.  Nor  can  they  be  called  un 
lawful  acts,  since  the  body  which  commits  them  has 
authority  to  make  them  legal.  They  have  for  the 
most  part  the  quality  of  unconscious  self-betrayal 


TENDENCIES    IN    DEMOCRACY 

and  inconsistent  action, — the  harboring  of  views 
and  the  forming  of  habits  which  carry  seeds  of  de 
cay  and  presages  of  dissolution  for  the  democratic 
state.  And  these  are  at  their  worst,  most  secret 
and  perilous,  precisely  in  those  times  and  countries 
where  the  democratic  theory  is  presented  as  a  sub 
stitute  for  religion,  and  the  ancient  heresy  that 
"the  king  can  do  no  wrong"  is  twisted  to  read  "the 
sovereign  people  can  make  no  mistakes." 

This  dogma  of  popular  infallibility  goes  directly 
in  the  teeth  of  experience,  and  cancels  that  wise 
and  needful  maxim  of  the  Hebrew  common 
wealth,  "Thou  shalt  not  follow  a  multitude  to  do 
evil." 

A  thoughtful  consideration  of  the  self-begotten 
>rs  and  morbific  propensities  which  brought 
ibout  the  downfall  of  such  democracy  as  existed 
|  in  Athens,  in  republican  Rome,  in  revolutionary 
,nce,  and  more  recently,  for  a  few  months,  in 
tappy  Russia,  dreaming  of  freedom  and  walking 
straight  into  the  ditch  of  Soviet  slavery, — such  a 
;udy  would  yield  matter  for  a  book  of  profitable 
tings.  But  for  our  present  purpose  of  a  camp- 
talk,  (with  side-reference  to  guide-posts,)  there 
no  need  to  go  so  far  back  or  afield.  There  are 
213 


CAMP-FIRES 

plenty  of  small  instances  and  significant  illustrations 
close  at  hand  in  these  States,  where  democracy  has 
found  its  greatest  opportunity. 

THE  REFERENDUM  HABIT 

What  shall  we  say,  for  instance,  of  the  tendency 
to  supersede  the  considerate  processes  of  repre 
sentative  government  by  submitting  complicated 
questions  which  require  long  thought  and  enlight 
ened  judgment,  to  the  direct,  immediate  yes-or- 
no  vote  of  the  masses?  Calling  it  a  referendum 
does  not  alter  its  nature.  It  is  a  demand  upon 
the  multitude  for  what  the  multitude  has  not 
got  and  cannot  deliver, — expert  knowledge  on  a 
variety  of  subjects  and  a  careful  solution  of  intricate 
problems.  Or  else  it  is  an  attempt  to  get  rid  of  the 
burden  of  responsibility  by  throwing  it  upon  the 
untrained  shoulders  of  the  people. 

A  California  woman  has  told  in  a  recent  maga 
zine  the  unconsciously  pathetic  story  of  her  first 
experience  at  the  polls  in  her  glorious  native  State. 
She  was  confronted,  a  few  weeks  before  the  elec 
tion,  with  a  vast,  portentous  referendum  which 
summoned  her  to  stand  and  deliver  her  judgment 
on  forty-two  points  of  public  policy.  (I  think  that 
214 


TENDENCIES    IN    DEMOCRACY 

was  the  number,  but  a  few  more  or  less  would  make 
no  difference.)  This  conscientious  and  heroic  woman 
shivered,  studied,  struggled,  did  her  best  to  perform 
her  enormous  duty  in  a  more  than  manful  way. 
But  at  the  end  she  was  rather  in  the  dark  as  to  just 
what  she  had  done,  and  the  joy  of  her  first  vote 
was  troubled  by  spasms  of  dubiety. 

Lowell  wrote:  "Direct  intervention  of  the  people 
in  their  own  affairs  is  not  of  the  essence  of  democ 
racy";  and  further:  "The  founders  of  our  democ 
racy  put  as  many  obstacles  as  they  could  contrive, 
not  in  the  way  of  the  people's  will, 'but  of  their 
whim."  That  is  sound  doctrine. 

Real  reform  and  progress  in  politics  must  be  ac 
complished  bit  by  bit.  Sudden  revolutions  may 
succeed,  but  do  not  prosper. 

To  change  personnel,  machinery,  and  methods  in 
a  factory  at  one  sweep,  is  usually  fatal.  New  men, 
machines,  and  processes,  must  be  brought  in  by 
degrees.  It  is  only  in  her  destructive  work  that 
Nature  operates  by  the  catastrophic  method. 

The  referendum,  no  doubt,  has  its  use  and  justi 
fication  in  certain  cases, — in  matters  which  have 
been  long  discussed  and  are  generally  understood, 
— in  questions  which  are  clear  and  definite  and 
215 


CAMP-FIRES 

admit  of  a  categorical  answer, — will  you  or  won't 
you  have  it  so?  Even  then,  I  think  it  takes  its 
best  form  in  the  choice  of  representatives  who  stand 
definitely  on  one  side  or  the  other  of  the  clear  ques 
tion  at  issue. 

The  formation  of  the  indiscriminate,  indolent, 
universal  referendum  habit  in  a  democracy  looks 
to  me  like  a  vice  with  suicidal  tendency. 

LEGIMANIA 

Another  bad  habit  which  seems  to  endanger  the 
security,  or  at  least  the  sound  health  of  a  democ 
racy,  is  the  propensity  to  make  too  many  laws  on 
too  many  subjects. 

Somewhere  in  my  filing-cabinet  I  have  the 
statistics  in  regard  to  the  number  of  laws  enacted 
by  the  legislatures  of  New  York,  California,  and 
other  States,  in  a  single  recent  year.  It  runs  well 
up  into  the  thousands;  and  if  you  add  to  it  the 
Acts  of  Congress  passed  in  the  same  time,  you  have 
a  sum  total  which  represents  a  solemn  revel  of  legi- 
mania. 

'Tis  as  if  a  doctor  should  seek  to  win  respect  and 
confidence  by  the  extraordinary  number  of  his  pre 
scriptions,  or  a  schoolmaster  to  establish  discipline 
216 


TENDENCIES    IN    DEMOCRACY 

by  multiplying  his  rules.  The  thing  cannot  be  done 
in  that  way. 

Doubtless  some  of  these  laws  are  wise  and  need 
ful.  Probably  most  of  them  are  well  meant.  They 
have  a  good  heart,  as  the  saying  goes.  It  is  in  the 
head  they  are  lacking.  And  so  in  practice  many 
of  them  produce  either  no  effect  at  all,  or  the  con 
trary  of  what  was  intended. 

Not  even  the  Puritan  Fathers  in  their  palmiest 
days  went  as  far  in  sumptuary  legislation  as  some 
of  our  modern  regulators  would  have  us  go. 

Of  old,  men  were  rebuked  by  the  Divine  Master 
for  asking  continually,  "What  shall  we  eat,  and 
what  shall  we  drink,  and  wherewithal  shall  we  be 
clothed?"  Nowadays  it  seems  to  be  no  reproach 
to  be  asking  continually,  "What  food  and  drink 
and  raiment  shall  we  permit  our  neighbors  to 
use?" 

"You  can  never  make  men  virtuous  by  legisla 
tion,"  said  the  Bromidian  Philosopher.  "Perhaps 
not,"  replied  the  Acidulous  Reformer,  "but  I  can 
make  them — uncomfortable." 

It  is  a  historic  fact  that  the  American  form  of 
government  has  as  its  basis  and  its  aim,  liberty, — 
the  largest  amount  of  liberty  in  action  for  the  in- 
217 


CAMP-FIRES 

dividual  that  is  consistent  with  a  due  regard  for 
the  liberties  of  others.  To  abandon  that  basis  is 
to  impair  the  stability  of  the  republic:  to  renounce 
that  aim  is  to  deprive  democracy  of  one  of  its  main 
appeals  to  the  common  sense  of  mankind. 

As  few  rules  as  possible,  but  those  well  enforced: 
that  is  the  regime  of  wisdom  and  strength. 

You  can  never  secure  by  popular  vote  that  which 
is  not  supported  by  public  opinion. 

The  tyranny  of  a  meddlesome  majority  is  as  ob 
noxious  as  the  interference  of  a  capricious  king. 

The  democracy  that  goes  beyond  its  duty  of  abat 
ing  public  nuisances  and  protecting  public  health, 
to  indulge  its  illusion  of  omnipotence  by  regulating 
private  affairs,  weakens  its  own  power  by  over 
straining  it. 

The  craze  for  superlegislation  in  a  democratic 
state  has  a  suicidal  aspect.  It  undermines  author 
ity,  lessens  respect,  and  begets  a  brood  of  resentful 
evasions  under  the  smooth  apron  of  hypocritical 
compliance. 

FICKLENESS 

We  expect  the  masses  to  be  fickle,  and  they  sel 
dom  disappoint  us.     But  when  that  frivolity  of 
218 


TENDENCIES    IN    DEMOCRACY 

mind  takes  a  violent  form  and  swings  to  the  alter 
nate  "falsehood  of  extremes,"  it  becomes  dangerous 
to  the  state. 

Republics  are  always  looking  for  heroes  and  al 
ways  pulling  them  down.  How  many  Washingtons 
and  Lincolns  has  America  discovered,  only  to  revile 
them  afterward  as  would-be  Caesars!  A  study  of 
newspaper  cartoons  from  the  Jacksonian  period  to 
the  present  would  show  the  head  of  many  a  good 
and  faithful  servant  of  his  country  encircled  with 
the  mocking  laurels  of  imperial  ambition. 

It  is  a  bad  habit  of  democracy  to  oscillate  be 
tween  adoration  and  abuse.  When  Admiral  Dewey 
came  home  from  his  famous  victory  at  Manila  Bay, 
nothing  was  too  good  for  him;  he  was  a  second 
Nelson,  the  savior  of  his  country,  worthy  of  the 
highest  place.  But  a  few  months  later,  when  he 
quite  properly  made  his  wife  a  wedding  present  of 
the  house  in  Washington  which  the  public  had  given 
to  him,  (thinking,  honest  man,  that  as  he  and  she 
were  one,  the  sharing  of  the  gift  was  natural,)  the 
fickle  populace  could  find  nothing  too  bad  to  say 
of  him.  He  could  not  have  been  elected  to  a  seat 
in  the  House  of  Representatives,  to  say  nothing 
of  the  Presidential  Chair.  Yet  he  remained  just 
219 


CAMP-FIRES 

what  he  always  was,  a  great,  quiet,  naval  com 
mander. 

Death  has  a  way  of  silencing  these  violent  reac 
tions  in  the  people.  It  is  only  a  few  among  the 
journalists  who  cherish  the  malice  of  their  oppug- 
nancies  and  pursue  the  men  whom  they  have  scorned 
into  the  grave.  For  the  public  at  large,  the  vanish 
ing  of  the  contestant  from  the  field  of  partisan  strife, 
means  a  calmer  and  deeper  vision  of  the  man  and 
his  services.  I  know  more  than  one  New  York 
clubman  who  used  to  swear  profanely  at  the  mere 
mention  of  Roosevelt's  name  while  he  was  alive, 
who  walked  among  the  mourners  at  his  funeral 
when  that  strong  and  valiant  soul  was  gone. 

Most  assuredly  this  habit  in  democracy  of  first 
blindly  adoring  and  then  cruelly  abusing  its  public 
men  while  they  are  in  life  is  a  suicidal  trait.  The 
danger  of  it  is  twofold. 

Some  day  an  idol  of  the  public  may  come  along 
who  is  really  a  Napoleon  or  a  Lenin  in  disguise; 
and  then, — good-by,  democracy.  That  is  one  dan 
ger. 

The  other  is  quite  the  reverse.  Many  a  day  the 
republic  imperils  the  usefulness  of  a  noble  servant, 
cripples  him  or  maims  him  for  the  time,  by  the  ex- 
220 


TENDENCIES    IN    DEMOCRACY 

travagance  of  partisan  scorn  and  vituperation. 
This  also  is  madness  and  folly,  vanity  and  a  striv 
ing  after  wind. 

Even  worse  than  fickleness  in  regard  to  heroes 
is  the  democratic  propensity  to  shift  and  veer  on 
matters  of  public  policy.  It  is  a  habit  of  minor 
politicians  to  maintain  their  leadership  by  follow 
ing  what  looks  like  the  crowd. 

I  remember  a  certain  President  of  whom  it  was 
often  said  that  he  had  his  ear  to  the  ground.  "  Watch 
him  closely,"  a  shrewd  critic  said  to  me,  "and  be 
fore  long  you'll  see  dust  on  the  other  ear." 

What  does  it  signify  when  at  a  certain  time  there 
is  general  enthusiasm  in  America  for  a  league  of 
nations  to  maintain  peace  and  the  leaders  of  both 
parties  cry  out  that  it  is  the  hope  of  the  world,  and 
then,  two  years  later,  the  enthusiasm  has  cooled 
and  half  of  the  leaders  exclaim  that  such  an  idea  is 
preposterous,  impossible,  a  menace  to  the  world, 
and  to  the  United  States  in  particular?  This  also 
is  vanity  and  a  striving  after  wind. 

What  does  it  signify  when  at  one  time  the  Monroe 
Doctrine  is  extolled  as  the  Palladium  of  our  safety, 
and  at  another  time  the  proposal  to  give  it  a  recog 
nized  standing  in  international  law  is  refused  with 


CAMP-FIRES 

mockery  ?  when  men  claim  effusively  that  the  United 
States  is  now  a  world-power,  and  soon  afterward 
shout  "What  do  we  care  for  Abroad?*'  This  also 
is  vanity  and  a  striving  after  wind. 

A  foolish  inconsistency  may  be  "  the  hobgoblin  of 
little  minds,"  as  Emerson  said.  But  for  a  great 
democracy  it  is  something  worse  than  that.  It  is  a 
bar  to  a  sober  and  settled  foreign  policy,  and  a 
disturber  of  domestic  order  and  progress.  It  makes 
the  pomp  of  politics  ridiculous,  and  exposes  the  re 
public  to  that  kind  of  laughter  among  the  nations 
which  is  a  warning  of  trouble.  It  needs  correcting, 
either  by  our  sense  of  humor,  or  by  our  sense  of 
honor. 

SCORN   OF   KNOWLEDGE 

There  are  other  self-destroying  propensities  in  a 
democratic  state  which  we  might  well  consider  and 
discuss  if  there  were  time.  But  the  camp-fire  wanes; 
and  before  the  logs  break  apart  and  fall,  we  must 
give  a  thought  to  the  most  dangerous  tendency  of 
all, — contempt  of  learning  for  its  own  sake,  scorn 
of  that  elemental  knowledge  which  is  the  basis  of 
character,  and  frivolous  neglect  of  popular  educa 
tion. 

222 


TENDENCIES    IN    DEMOCRACY 

But  is  not  America  free  from  that  defect?  Are 
not  Americans  the  best-educated  people  in  the 
world  ?  They  are  not.  And  the  worst  of  it  is,  they 
think  they  are. 

In  the  matter  of  universities  and  professional 
schools  we  have  done  astonishingly  well,  as  Bryce 
remarked,  (to  our  great  satisfaction,)  in  his  ex 
cellent  book  on  The  American  Commonwealth.  Yet 
even  in  this  respect,  if  we  may  take  the  testimony 
of  recent  home-made  and  much-praised  books  on 
American  college  life,  there  is  much  to  be  desired 
in  the  way  of  manners,  morals,  and  mental  culture 
among  the  average  frequenters  of  what  we  call  our 
higher  institutions  of  learning.  To  speak  frankly, 
these  pictures  do  not  cheer,  though  they  may  in 
ebriate. 

But  when  we  turn  to  the  broader  field  and  look 
at  the  general  condition  and  actual  results  of  pop 
ular  education  in  these  States,  the  view  is  dismal. 
It  would  be  laughable  if  it  were  not  appalling.  Half 
a  dozen  small  European  states,  Canada,  Australia, 
New  Zealand,  and  Japan  are  all  ahead  of  America 
in  school  attendance  and  literacy.  The  selective 
draft  of  1917  uncovered  the  ugly  fact  that  about 
twenty-five  per  cent  of  the  men  of  America  between 
223 


CAMP-FIRES 

eighteen  and  thirty-five  years  of  age  are  unable  to 
read  a  newspaper  or  write  a  letter.  Ten  per  cent 
cannot  write  their  own  names.  There  are  seven 
and  a  half  million  people  in  the  United  States  over 
sixteen  years  old  who  can  neither  read  nor  write 
English  or  any  other  language. 

Negroes,  you  say,  or  ignorant  foreigners!  If 
that  were  so,  would  it  make  the  case  any  better, 
since  these  are  actual  or  potential  voters,  our  future 
masters?  But  in  fact  more  than  half  of  these  un 
taught  sovereigns  of  the  state  are  white,  and  nearly 
one-third  of  them  are  white  Americans,  home-born 
and  home-bred. 

What  was  democracy  thinking  of  when  it  suffered 
this  perilous  bulk  of  ignorance  to  grow  within  its 
own  body?  Are  the  national  institutions  in  which 
we  take  such  a  just  and  honorable  pride  safe  in  the 
hands  of  men  and  women  whose  minds  are  left  in 
darkness  and  whose  moral  training  is  committed 
to  chance  or  charity,  while  we  use  their  bodies  to 
work  our  farms,  dig  our  ditches,  build  our  railways, 
and  run  our  factories  ? 

We  are  breeding  a  Helot  class  of  our  own  flesh 
and  blood.  We  are  ignoring  the  rightful  claim  of 
every  citizen  to  be  prepared  for  the  duties  which 
224 


TENDENCIES    IN    DEMOCRACY 

the  state  lays  upon  him.  We  are  debasing  the  hu 
man  currency  of  the  republic.  We  are  laying  un 
baked  bricks  in  our  foundations  and  building  our 
walls  with  untempered  mortar.  We  are  heaping  up 
at  the  doors  of  our  own  temple  piles  of  tinder  and 
quick-flaming  fuel,  ready  for  the  torch  of  the 
anarchist  or  the  insidious  slow-match  of  the  cun 
ning  usurper.  We  are  recruiting  the  sullen  armies 
of  ignorant  unrest; 

For  every  soul  denied  the  right  to  grow 
Beneath  the  flag,  will  be  its  secret  foe. 

But  who  denies  that  right?  Democracy  denies 
it,  by  neglect  and  parsimony,  by  a  careless  disre 
gard  of  the  crying  needs  of  popular  education. 

But  is  not  our  public-school  system  open  to  all? 
It  is;  but  the  door  is  narrow,  and  few  there  be  that 
find  it, — few,  I  mean,  of  those  who  need  it  most. 
For  the  children  of  the  rich,  the  well-to-do,  the 
moderately  comfortable,  the  provision  of  schools 
is  ample.  It  is  the  children  of  the  poor  who  suffer 
and  go  in  want. 

In  the  great  city  of  New  York  last  year  one  hun- 
!dred  thousand  poor  children  were  deprived  of  school 
ing.  And  why?  Because  there  were  no  teachers 
225 


CAMP-FIRES 

to  instruct  them.  And  again,  why?  Because  tin 
pay  offered  to  teachers  was  too  small  to  keep  then 
alive. 

Democracy  gives  its  carpenters,  bricklayers 
plumbers,  and  the  like,  more  for  their  work  than  i 
gives  to  those  who  have  the  supreme  task  of  en 
lightening  and  training  its  children.  Does  not  thi 
look  as  if  it  cared  more  for  its  houses  than  for  it; 
offspring,  more  for  its  goods  than  for  its  soul? 

In  the  labor-unions  of  New  York  (1919)  the  aver 
age  yearly  wage  of  skilled  workers  was  $2,496,  o 
unskilled  workers  $1,664.  The  wage  of  teacher 
was  $1,240.  Is  not  this  indisputable  evidence  tha 
scorn  of  knowledge  and  silent  contempt  of  educa 
tion  prevail  to  some  extent  in  America? 

Is  this  safe?  Is  it  true  economy  to  indulge  th< 
proletariat  and  starve  the  educariat?  (There  maj 
be  no  such  word,  but  there  is  such  a  thing,  the  whoL 
body  of  teachers,  consecrated  to  a  common  tasl 
and  bound  together  by  mutual  dependence  for  th< 
success  of  their  work.)  Is  liberty  itself  secure  ii 
a  country  which  boasts  of  its  possession  but  takes 
no  care  for  its  preservation? 

"Freedom,  to  be  desirable,"  says  Stevenson 
"involves  kindness,  wisdom,  and  all  the  virtues  o: 
226 


TENDENCIES    IN    DEMOCRACY 

the  free."  But  these  do  not  spring  out  of  the  ground 
by  nature.  They  must  be  implanted,  nurtured, 
developed,  and  trained. 

Nothing  is  more  difficult  to  preserve  than  the 
true  love  of  freedom  in  a  free  country.  Being 
habituated  to  it,  men  cease  to  consider  by  what 
sacrifices  it  was  obtained,  and  by  what  precautions 
and  safeguards  it  must  be  defended. 

Liberty  itself  is  the  great  lesson.  And  in  learning 
it  we  need  teachers, — the  wise,  the  just,  the  free 
of  all  ages.  Most  of  all  we  need  the  help  of  religion, 
by  which  alone  the  foundations  of  the  state  are 
laid  in  righteousness,  and  democracy  is  saved  from 
its  own  suicidal  tendencies. 

Come,  let  us  cover  the  fire,  and  so  to  bed,  not 
forgetting  an  honest  prayer  for  the  country  we  love 
best. 


227 


XV 
A    BUNDLE    OF    LETTERS 

MANY  unknown  correspondents,  from  all  corners 
of  the  earth,  wrote  to  the  Camp-fire  Cogitator  while 
some  of  these  papers  were  coming  out  in  Scribncr's 
Magazine.  Almost  all  of  the  letters  were  kind  and 
heartening.  Many  of  them  were  informing,  in 
structive,  full  of  human  interest. 

See,  here  is  a  little  bundle  of  them, — covered 
with  all  sorts  of  postmarks, — messages  from  strange 
cities  and  far-off  wildernesses  and  lonely  farms  and 
ships  at  sea, — tokens  of  that  hidden  friendliness 
which  lies  all  round  us  in  the  world.  One  came 
just  the  other  day,  by  wireless  telegraph,  from  the 
British  Admiral  at  Bermuda,  while  I  was  sailing 
homeward:  "May  I  say,  So  long?9' 

Many  of  the  letters  were  answers  to  a  question  in 
"Firelight  Views," — do  you  remember? — about  the 
lovely  old-fashioned  rose  with  the  forgotten  name. 
Here  is  a  sample  of  these  answers,  which  comes  from 
Elizabethtown  in  the  Adirondacks,  and  was  written 


A    BUNDLE    OF    LETTERS 

by  a  lady  with  whom  I  played  when  she  was  a  little 
girl,  but  whom  I  have  not  seen  for  more  years  than 
it  would  be  polite  to  number. 

"I  believe  the  rose  you  refer  to  in  the  June 
Scribner's  is  the  'Gold  of  Ophir,' — a  single,  or  half- 
double,  climbing  rose,  growing  over  porches  in  Cali 
fornia  when  I  was  there  twenty-five  years  ago.  It 
had  a  deep  yellow  heart,  shading  into  rose  colors 
on  the  edges,  and  having  a  curious  lavender  sheen 
flickering  through  the  yellow  and  rose,  very  lovely. 

C.  P.  H." 

Yes,  dear  lady,  that  is  the  rose, — Gold  of  Ophir, 
— and  I'm  glad  that  word  about  it  comes  from  the 
friendly  mountain-land  where  you  live.  But  my 
own  first  sight  of  that  softly,  purely  flaming  flower 
was  forty-four  years  ago  on  a  veranda  at  the  "Sand 
Hills,"  near  Augusta,  Georgia.  The  rose  queened 
it  over  all  the  red  and  white  camellias. 

One  of  my  most  prized  letters  came  from  an  un 
known  Canadian  soldier,  G.  J.  S.,  who  is  now  farm 
ing  in  Saskatchewan.  A  fine  little  story  is  quoted 
from  it  in  the  chapter  on  "Christmas  Greens." 
He  signs  himself,  "Yours  to  a  camp-fire  cinder." 
229 


CAMP-FIRES 

But  once  in  a  while  a  letter  arrives  which  be 
longs  in  a  different  class.  Here  is  a  specimen: 

"San  Francisco,  Cal. 

Feb.  13,  1921. 
"HENRY  VAN  DYKE,  ESQUIRE. 

"Dear  Sir:— 

"After  reading  your  article  in  November  'Scrib- 
ner's,'  (Suicidal  Tendencies  in  Democracy),  I  am 
impelled  to  differ  with  you,  and  as  criticism  is  not 
always  distasteful,  here  you  are. 

"1.  About  school  teachers: — In  this  city  they 
have  easy  hours,  paid  vacation  periods,  and  then 
in  old  age  a  pension.  About  75%  are  Roman 
Catholics  who  would  teach  the  public  schools  out 
of  existence  if  they  could  earn  a  living  at  anything 
else.  Recently,  though,  the  Americans  asserted 
themselves,  with  the  result  that,  by  a  narrow  ma 
jority,  the  Irish  crowd  were  beaten. 

"2.  There  is  too  much  education  to  be  had  free 
of  cost.  Nearly  everybody  is  educated  now,  with 
the  result  that  90%  of  the  graduates  spend  their 
young  lives  looking  around  for  something  easy  to 
do.  The  men  who  discovered  and  developed  this 
great  state  were  not  college  graduates  or  book 
worms. 

230 


A    BUNDLE    OF    LETTERS 

"3.  Democracy — The  American  brand  of  Democ 
racy  is  a  farce.  Here  is  an  example.  By  a  ma 
jority  of  65000  votes  the  people  of  California  voted 
'wet.'  Immediately  thereafter  their  duly  elected 
representatives  met  and  voted  'dry.'  This  is  a 
notorious  fact,  and  yet  political  orators  get  up 
and  shout  about  the  land  of  liberty.  In  a  rougher 
age,  or  in  sane  Bolshevist  community,  the  afore 
said  legislators  would  have  been  hanged  or  shot. 
American  democracy,  I  repeat,  is  a  farce,  and  the 
talk  of  representative  government  is  all  'bunk.' 
Pardon  the  slang. 

"The  only  thing  to  do  in  this  democracy  is  to 
make  as  much  money  as  possible  and  then  hide  it 
away  securely  from  the  small  army  of  tax-eaters 
that  fattens  itself,  a  la  parasite,  in  every  com 
munity. 

Yours  truly, 

A  WESTERN  SPECTATOR." 

Now  that  is  an  anonymous  letter,  which  is  usually 
a  thing  of  shame.  But  this  one  is  not  at  all  shame 
ful.  It  is  frank;  it  is  friendly  in  purpose;  it  is 
courteous  enough;  there  is  no  reason  at  all  why 
the  author  should  not  have  put  his  name  to  it. 
231 


CAMP-FIRES 

Yet  at  the  end  it  seems  to  me  to  go  a  little 
crazy. 

What  do  you  think?  Read  the  last  sentence. 
Is  not  this  a  graphic  illustration  of  "Sukidal  Ten 
dencies  in  Democracy"? 


XVI 

CHRISTMAS     GREENS 

(WRITTEN  IN  AUTUMN) 
"THE  time  draws  near  the  birth  of  Christ,"— 

you  remember,  reader,  the  rest  of  those  lovely  can- 
toes  of  In  Memoriam,  where  the  bells  of  four  vil 
lages  answer  each  other  through  the  misty  night 
while  the  wreaths  of  evergreen  are  woven  with 
memories  and  regrets  to  deck  the  church  and  the 
home  in  honor  of  the  best  of  all  birthdays. 

Once  more  the  Yuletide  is  near, — near  at  least 
to  the  Slave  of  the  Magazine,  though  by  the  dull, 
prosaic  almanac  it  is  still  months  away.  For  me 
it  is  proximate  and  pressing.  The  editor  cajoles 
and  threatens:  the  printer  waits  at  extra  wages 
for  overtime:  to-morrow  will  be  Christmas  and 
the  day  after  will  be  New  Year;  and  I  must  gather 
the  figurative  greens  to-day,  or  leave  our  Christmas 
Camp-fire  without  a  token  of  remembrance  or  a 
sign  of  cheer. 


CAMP-FIRES 

But  what  a  day  is  this  on  which  I  set  about  my 
pleasant  task!  Indian  summer  at  its  golden  best: 
the  blue  of  the  sky  subdued  by  a  silvery  haze  to 
the  tint  of  turquoise,  faintly  luminous:  the  verdure 
of  the  woodlands,  ripened  and  dulled  a  little  by  the 
August  heat,  now  shot  through  with  the  first  rich 
threads  of  autumnal  glory:  the  mountains  growing 
higher  and  more  aerial,  as  they  recede  in  the  light 
mist,  until  they  change  into  bastions  of  amethyst: 
the  deep  blue  of  the  open  sea  ever  deepening  far 
away,  while  the  white  flower  of  foam  above  the 
hidden  reef  expands  and  closes  with  every  passing 
wave, — a  mystic  lily  on  a  sleeper's  breast. 

From  every  orchard  the  smell  of  ripening  apples 
comes  out  to  us,  and  from  the  tangled  thicket  we 
catch  the  odor  of  fox-grapes,  waiting  for  the  frost 
to  sweeten  them.  Wild  asters  and  goldenrod  adorn 
the  wayside;  gentians  bloom  in  secret  places.  The 
little  birds  have  assembled  their  silent  companies 
for  southward  flight.  But  they  are  loath  to  leave 
their  summer  haunts,  and  if  we  go  warily  through 
the  wood,  they  will  flock  around  us  suddenly,  flutter 
ing  through  the  coppice  in  search  of  food,  flitting 
from  branch  to  branch  of  the  dark  firs,  lisping,  call 
ing,  whispering  sotto  voce,  no  doubt  talking  over 
234 


CHRISTMAS    GREENS 

their  plans  for  the  long  journey  to  Central  America. 
All  round  us  as  we  walk  through  this  ephemeral 
beauty,  the  more  enduring  growths  which  are  to 
serve  for  adornment  in  our  homes  at  the  midwinter 
festival  are  visible  and  suggestive  to  the  inward 
eye  which  looks  far  ahead.  Here  the  young  spruces 
and  balsam-firs,  shapely  and  symmetrical  pyramids 
of  absolute  green,  are  standing  by  thousands  in 
the  open  places, — regiments  of  Christmas-trees! 

Here 

"The  ground-pine  trails  its  pretty  wreath 
Running  over  the  club-moss  burrs," 

ready  to  be  twined  into  garlands  or  long  festoons. 
Here  the  glistening,  prickly  holly  lights  its  dark 
foliage  with  red  berries;  and  the  ground-hemlock 
hides  its  delicate  coral  fruit  like  drops  of  translucent 
wax  under  its  spreading  branches;  and  the  climb 
ing  bittersweet  curls  back  its  orange  pods  to  show 
the  scarlet-covered  seeds  within;  and  the  pale-green 
mistletoe, — not  just  here  perhaps,  but  a  little  farther 
south, — prepares  its  pearly  berries  to  sanction  kisses 
yet  unkissed. 

Nature  in  her  lavish  way  provides  beauty  for 
every  season:   flowers  that  fade  and  vanish  as  the 
summer  goes:   gold  and  crimson  leaves  that  fall  as 
235 


CAMP-FIRES 

the  autumn  wanes:  and  evergreens  that  will  stay 
with  us  in  rich  and  sober  loveliness  when 

"Full  knee-deep  lies  the  winter  snow, 
And  the  winter  winds  are  wearily  sighing." 

All  these  things  are  given  us  to  enjoy.  They  are 
best  in  the  place  where  nature  put  them,  out-of- 
doors:  but  a  little  of  each  and  all  we  may  rightly 
take,  if  we  will,  to  deck  our  dwellings,  if  for  no  other 
purpose  than  to  be  a  fragrant  reminder  that  we 
are  more  akin  to  nature  than  to  our  houses. 

Shall  we  grieve,  then,  at  the  thought  that  some 
of  these  pretty,  wild,  growing  things  will  be  cut 
and  gathered  for  Christmas  greens?  Not  I, — if 
the  cutting  and  gathering  are  wisely  done,  with 
kindly  forethought  of  the  coming  generations,  so 
that  no  sort  of  harmless  vine  or  amiable  tree  shall 
be  exterminated  from  the  earth. 

Let  us  not  spoil  our  love  of  nature  with  a  sickly 
affectation.  There  are  enough  evergreen  things  in 
our  country  to  provide  a  sign  of  Christmas  for  every 
house  and  church  in  it.  To  gather  them  prudently 
is  to  practise  a  kind  of  forestry.  After  all,  one 
can  think  of  no  fairer  way  for  a  little  fir-tree  to  com 
plete  its  life  than  by  becoming  for  a  while  the 
236 


CHRISTMAS    GREENS 

sparkling  centre  of  a  circle  of  human  joy, — a  Christ 
mas-tree!  If  your  imagination  must  endow  the 
little  fir  with  feelings,  why  not  give  it  this  fine  emo 
tion  of  ending  in  glory  ? 

I  confess  myself  out  of  sympathy  with  tkose 
writers  who  complain  that  they  must  write  their 
Christmas  stories  in  midsummer  and  their  August 
fiction  in  midwinter.  Incongruous  it  may  seem, 
but  such  incongruity  is  of  the  very  warp  and  woof 
of  life. 

Always  we  are  looking  backward  and  forward 
while  we  live  the  passing  hour.  Every  true  pleasure 
hath  in  it  an  extract  of  the  past  and  a  tincture  of 
the  future. 

I  think  it  was  that  great  artist  John  La  Farge 
who  said  "all  drawing  of  the  things  we  see  is  an 
exercise  of  memory,  and  the  things  we  have  seen 
enter  into  it."  The  springs  of  poetry,  Wordsworth 
found,  have  their  origin  in  "emotion  recollected  in 
tranquillity."  This  is  true  of  noble  sorrow  as  of  pure 
joy.  There  is  not  one  little  delight  that  comes  to 
us  without  a  flavor  of  reminder.  When  we  lie  on 
a  bed  of  balsam  boughs  in  the  forest  we  dream  of  a 
Christmas-tree.  When  we  enter  the  room  where 
the  gift-laden,  candle-lighted  tree  waits  for  the 
237 


CAMP-FIRES 

children,  the  very  smell  of  it  carries  us  away  to 
camp  in  the  greenwood. 

You  may  call  this  "sentimental,"  if  you  will, 
Brother  Gradgrind,  and  scoff  at  it  in  your  sour,  self- 
satisfied  way.  But  it  is  by  this  thread  that  our 
personalities  are  held  together.  If  you  have  it  not, 
as  you  boast,  that  is  probably  why  you  are  a  person 
so  little  to  be  envied,  a  thing  of  shreds  and  patches, 
but  no  man. 

There  is  no  present  reality  for  us  humans,  with 
out  memory  and  hope.  Lose  the  first,  and  you  are 
dead;  lose  the  second,  and  you  are  buried.  But 
in  Christmas,  as  truly  as  in  Easter,  if  we  come  to 
it  in  the  spirit,  there  is  a  power  of  resurrection. 

The  custom  of  adorning  our  houses  and  places 
of  worship  at  this  season  with  green  tokens  from 
the  winter  woods  came  down  to  us,  no  doubt,  from 
heathen  ancestors  who  dwelt,  as  we  do,  in  what 
is  ironically  called  the  north  temperate  zone.  It 
was  partly  a  tribute  to  unknown  gods,  and  partly 
an  expression  of  man's  wish  to  make  himself  com 
fortable  and  even  merry  in  the  teeth  of  the  rudest 
weather. 

In  the  tropics,  of  course,  there  would  be  no  call 
for  this  defiance  of  the  frost.  And  in  the  southern 
238 


CHRISTMAS    GREENS 

hemisphere  the  seasons  would  be  reversed;  instead 
of  Christmas  greens  there  would  be  a  festival  of 
flowers  out-of-doors.  There  must  be  something 
charming  in  that;  yet  those  who  have  tasted  the 
ruder  and  more  bracing  joys  of  a  northern  Christmas 
always  hone  for  them,  and  cannot  be  comforted 
with  palms  and  pomegranates.  Shakespeare,  in 
Love's  Labor's  Lost,  makes  Biron  say, 

"At  Christmas  I  no  more  desire  a  rose, 
Than  wish  a  snow  in  May's  new-fangled  shows." 

Some  hold  that  the  decking  of  houses  with  green 
branches  in  December  originated  among  the  Druids, 
and  was  a  pious  provision  for  the  poor  sylvan  spirits, 
— elves  and  fays  and  good  goblins, — who  needed  a 
shelter  from  the  nipping  cold.  That  may  be  what 
the  Druids  told  the  people;  but  I  think  natural 
inclination  and  a  love  of  beauty  had  a  good  deal 
to  do  with  it. 

Religious  customs  are  most  easily  accepted  when 
they  fit  in  with  human  desires. 

Holly  with  its  bright  sheen  and  vivid  color  was 

the  symbol  of  mirth  and  good  cheer.    Ivy  was  sacred 

to  Bacchus,  and  hung  over  the  door  of  wine-shops; 

yet  if  I  mistake  not  there  was  also  an  ancient  tradi- 

239 


CAMP-FIRES 

tion  that  while  it  invited  to  drinking  it  was  a  talis 
man  against  drunkenness, — a  most  considerate  and 
helpful  arrangement!  Laurel  and  bay  were  signs 
of  honor  and  festivity. 

Mistletoe  was  the  most  weird  and  magical  of  all 
the  Christmas  greens,  feared  a  little  because  of  its 
association  with  druidical  sacrifices,  yet  loved  a 
good  deal  for  its  modern  uses.  They  say  that  in 
the  olden  time  it  was  admitted  in  the  Yuletide  deco 
ration  of  houses,  but  not  of  churches.  Yet  one  of 
the  antiquarians  tells  us  that  in  the  eighteenth  cen 
tury,  in  York  Cathedral,  it  was  the  custom  on  Christ 
mas  Eve  to  carry  a  branch  of  mistletoe  to  the  high 
altar  and  "proclaim  a  public  and  universal  liberty, 
pardon,  and  freedom  to  all  sorts  of  inferior  and  even 
wicked  people  at  the  gates  of  the  city  toward  the 
four  quarters  of  heaven." 

Here  we  find,  perhaps,  a  hint  of  that  liberty  of 
osculation  with  which  the  homely  plant  is  now  con 
nected.  And  this,  again,  we  may  dimly  trace  back 
to  the  Scandinavian  myth.  For  the  arrow  with 
which  the  rascally  Loki  tricked  the  blind  Hoder 
into  killing  Baldur  the  beautiful,  was  made  of  mistle 
toe.  When  the  fatal  shaft  was  plucked  out,  the 
mistletoe  was  given  into  the  keeping  of  Freya,  the 
240 


CHRISTMAS    GREENS 

love-goddess;  and  henceforth  on  every  one  who 
passes  beneath  it  she  bestows  a  kiss, — a  right 
pleasant  legend  with  a  happy  ending!  Yet  after 
all,  if  Freya, — well,  I  will  say  no  more  than  this, 
if  Freya ! 

There  is  a  quaint  reference  on  this  point  in  Haw 
thorne's  "English  Note-Books,"  under  date  of 
December  26,  1855.  He  was  then  American  Con 
sul  at  Liverpool  living  in  the  cosey  boarding-house 
of  Mrs.  Blodgett.  "On  Christmas  Eve  and  yester 
day,"  he  says,  "there  were  branches  of  mistletoe 
hanging  in  several  parts  of  the  house,  in  the  kitchen, 
the  entries,  the  parlor,  and  the  smoking-room, — 
suspended  from  the  gas-fittings.  The  maids  of  the 
house  did  their  utmost  to  entrap  the  gentlemen 
boarders,  old  and  young,  under  the  privileged  places, 
and  there  to  kiss  them,  after  which  they  were  ex 
pected  to  pay  a  shilling.  It  is  very  queer,  being 
customarily  so  respectful,  that  they  should  assume 
this  license  now,  absolutely  trying  to  pull  the  gentle 
men  into  the  kitchen  by  main  force,  and  kissing 
the  harder  and  more  abundantly  the  more  they 
were  resisted.  A  little  rosy-cheeked  Scotch  lass — 
at  other  times  very  modest — was  the  most  active 
in  this  business.  /  doubt  whether  any  gentleman  but 


CAMP-FIRES 

myself  escaped.  [Italics  mine.]  I  heard  old  Mr. 

S parleying  with  the  maids  last  evening  and 

pleading  his  age;  but  he  seems  to  have  met  with 
no  mercy,  for  there  was  a  sound  of  prodigious  smack 
ing  immediately  afterwards.  J was  assaulted, 

and  fought  most  vigorously;  but  was  outrageously 
kissed — receiving  some  scratches,  moreover,  in  the 
conflict.  The  mistletoe  has  white  wax-looking 
berries,  and  dull  green  leaves,  with  a  parasitical 
stem." 

Oh,  Mr.  Hawthorne !  Was  it  comedy  or  tragedy 
that  you  meant  to  write  ?  Would  you  have  us  con 
gratulate,  or  pity  you  on  your  "escape"  from  the 
rosy-cheeked  Scotch  lass?  Did  you  lock  yourself 
in  your  room  and  refuse  nourishment  for  forty- 
eight  hours  ?  At  all  events  you  kept  your  pale  Puri 
tan  humor  in  that  gay  galley  of  British  fun. 

The  old  English  customs  and  manners  of  Yule- 
tide, — the  general  atmosphere  of  festive  preparation, 
the  carolling  of  the  "waits"  on  Christmas  Eve, 
the  service  in  the  village  church  on  Christmas  Morn, 
the  feasting  in  servants'  hall  and  dining-room,  the 
Yule-clog  blazing  on  the  broad  hearth  and  the  boar's 
head  borne  in  with  ceremony,  the  Wassail-Bowl  and 
the  Christmas-Pie,  the  songs  and  dances  and  games 
242 


CHRISTMAS    GREENS 

under  the  Lord  of  Misrule,  the  mummery  in  fancy 
dress,  the  ghost-stories  by  the  fireside,  the  pervasive 
spirit  of  joviality  and  good  comradeship  between 
young  and  old,  wise  and  simple,  rich  and  poor, — 
these  Christmas  charms  are  nowhere  set  forth  more 
enchantingly  than  in  The  Sketch-Book  of  Wash 
ington  Irving.  No  wonder  that  Sir  Walter  Scott 
loved  the  book  and  the  author.  Yet  even  when  he 
wrote,  the  genial  Knickerbocker  saw  these  ways 
and  manners  as  antiquities,  in  a  vanishing  light; 

-and  he  prefaced  his  essays  with  a  quotation  from 
a  still  earlier  Hue  and  Cry  after  Christmas:  "But 
is  old,  ^^  good  old  Christmas  gone  ?  Nothing  but 
the  hair  of  his  good,  gray,  old  head  and  beard  left  ? 
Well,  I  will  have  that,  seeing  I  cannot  have  more 
of  him." 

That  seems  to  be  the  proper,  regular,  inevitable 
attitude  to  take  about  Christmas, — a  kind  of  hail- 
and-farewell  tone, — as  if  one  would  say,  "let  us 

i  have  one  more  jolly  good  time,  it  may  be  the  last." 

;  In  that  fruitful  little  book  Guesses  at  Truth,  written 
in  1827,  I  find  this  passage:  "It  was  a  practice 

'  worthy  of  our  ancestors  to  fill  their  houses  at  Christ 
mas  time  with  their  relations  and  friends;  that 
when  Nature  was  frozen  and  dreary  out  of  doors, 
243 


CAMP-FIRES 

something  might  be  found  within  doors  'to  keep 
the  pulses  of  their  hearts  in  proper  motion.'  The 
custom,  however,  is  only  appropriate  among  people 
who  happen  to  have  hearts.  Jt  is  had  taste  to  re- 
lain  it  in  these  days,  when  everybody  worth  hanging 

"'oublie  sa  mere 
Et  par  bon  ton  se  defend  d'etre  pere.9" 

So  runs  the  song  from  age  to  age, — O  good  old 
times !  O  bad  present  times !  O  worse  times  to 
come! 

I  wonder  what  particular  ways  and  manners  of 
our  own  day  the  people  of  the  twenty-second  cen 
tury  will  regard  as  especially  picturesque  and  ro 
mantic. 

There  is  plenty  about  Christmas  in  the  treasure- 
house  of  English  poetry,  from  Milton's  glorious 
hymn  to  the  lyrics  of  Eugene  Field  and  Bliss  Car 
man  and  Lady  Lindsay.  Richest  and  most  Christ 
massy  are  the  old  ballads  and  carols  and  the  poems 
by  such  writers  as  George  Wither  and  Robert  Her- 
rick.  But  every  poet  when  he  comes  to  this  sub 
ject  shows  something  of  his  own  personal  character 
and  sentiment, — his  way  of  looking  at  life.  Thus 
Stevenson  writes  a  ballad  of  Christmas  at  Sea,  and 
Kipling  of  Christmas  in  India. 
244 


CHRISTMAS    GREENS 

To  some  of  us  there  is  a  peculiar  brightness 
and  sweetness  in  the  memories  associated  with  the 
homely  household  rites  of  putting  up  the  greens 
and  dressing  the  tree.  This  is  done  on  Christmas 
Eve,  after  the  younger  children,  or  perhaps  the 
grandchildren,  have  hung  up  their  stockings  and 
gone  to  bed.  The  elder  children  help.  There  is  a 
joyous  bustle  and  an  air  of  secrecy  about  the  busi 
ness.  If  you  hear  a  patter  of  small  feet  on  the 
stair  or  see  a  tousled  head  peeping  through  the 
banisters,  you  must  pretend  to  notice  nothing. 

The  tall  step-ladder  must  be  brought  up  from 
the  cellar,  and  it  is  usually  very  rickety.  There  are 
wreaths  to  be  hung  in  windows  and  festoons  to  be 
looped  over  doors.  A  new  way  of  decorating  the 
pillars  is  much  called  for,  but  after  many  experi 
ments  you  always  come  back  to  the  old  way. 
(Reader,  I  know  not  what  your  favorite  way  may 
be,  but  I  am  all  for  spirals  of  ground-pine.)  Then 
the  tree  must  be  set  up,  on  a  white  cloth,  and  decked 
with  tiny  candles,  and  hung  with  ornaments,  old 
and  new.  (Don't  forget  the  old  ones,  or  the  children 
will  miss  them.)  Then  the  presents,  the  simpler 
the  better,  must  be  arranged  in  little  piles  under 
the  tree. 

245 


CAMP-FIRES 

Last  of  all,  there  are  certain  pictures, — "the  old 
familiar  faces,"  gone  away,  but  never  nearer  than 
to-night — and  each  one  of  them  must  have  its  wreath 
of  green,  or  perhaps  a  flower  in  a  little  vase  before 
it.  While  you  are  doing  this  you  have  few  words, 
but  long,  long  thoughts. 

Now  it  is  midnight,  and  so  to  bed,  for  the  chil 
dren  will  have  emptied  their  stockings  by  sunrise, 
and  will  be  down  in  force  to  assault  the  room  where 
the  tree  is  locked  in. 

This  is  Christmas  at  home, — the  best  place.  But 
who  can  tell  where  the  holy  day  will  find  him, — 
how  far  away,  how  lonely,  in  what  strange  and  hard 
surroundings?  Shall  he  then  be  robbed  of  its  joy? 
Shall  it  pass  by  without  a  bit  of  green  and  a  bless 
ing?  Not  if  he  have  the  heart  to  put  forth  his 
hand  and  touch  the  hem  of  its  garment  in  passing. 

Many  a  boy,  in  the  years  just  passed,  has  had  a 
rough  Christmas.  A  letter  came  to  me  the  other 
day  from  a  young  Canadian  farmer,  a  stranger,  who 
had  been  reading  these  Camp-fire  papers,  and  this 
is  what  he  wrote: 

"The  memory  comes  back  embellished  by  many 
a  pleasant  and  stirring  adventure  in  the  Balkans 
246 


CHRISTMAS    GREENS 

and  takes  one  back  to  Christmas  Day  1916.  I  was 
one  of  a  British  Artillery  observation  party  and 
we  were  then  leading  a  precarious  existence  on  the 
bald,  bare  and  lofty  crown  of  Hill  380,  which  over 
looked  Ghergheli,  that  border  town  of  many  vicissi 
tudes.  Our  attack,  made  a  few  days  previously, 
had  fizzled  into  chaos  owing  to  small  numbers  and 
faulty  liaison  work  with  the  Zouaves  on  our  left. 
Incidentally  our  ration  supply  had  failed  for  about 
five  days  and  a  brief,  (very  brief  in  fact,)  survey 
of  our  larder  found  us  with  a  leg  of  mutton  of  the 
*  white  lean*  (fat)  description  and  three  tins  of  the 
ubiquitous  *  bully.'  Of  tea,  sugar,  bread  or  fuel 
there  were  none,  and  even  if  hope  springs  eternal 
according  to  Pope,  it  is  apt  to  run  rather  in  the 
valley  of  melancholy  when  a  party  of  nine  have  to 
spend  Christmas  day  in  a  poorly  constructed  shelter, 
and  with  a  few  pounds  of  raw  meat  as  sole  suste 
nance.  The  hilltop  was  exposed  to  machine-gun  fire 
and  also  enfilade  artillery  strafes,  and  so  movement 
of  any  kind  was  somewhat  hazardous  and  even,  in 
the  circumstances,  futile.  I  had  joined  the  French 
sous-lieutenant  in  the  O.  P.,  and  in  saddened  strains 
we  conversed  of  Noel  under  more  cheerful  and  homely 
conditions.  Towards  evening,  observation  became 
247 


CAMP-FIRES 

difficult,  and  so,  posting  a  lookout  man  in  case  of 
infantry  flares  for  barrage,  we  crawled  back  to  our 
inhospitable  dugout  and  exchanged  cigarettes  with 
a  view  to  await  the  possible,  though  highly  improb 
able,  arrival  of  the  ration  party.  From  the  men's 
quarters  came  sounds  of  a  melancholy  dirge  known 
to  the  troops  as  'Looking  for  Rum.5  A  casual  glance 
in  the  direction  showed  a  faint  trickle  of  light,  waver 
ing  over  the  ground.  My  companion  and  I  crawled 
from  our  sleeping-bags  and  crossed  to  the  other  dug 
out.  It  was  a  sight  of  great  content  to  a  pair  of 
chilly  and  hungry  mortals.  In  a  battered  tin  helmet 
was  a  cheery  fire,  over  which  one  of  the  telephonists 
fried  bully  beef  in  his  dixie  lid.  Further  inspection 
showed  that  the  fire  came  from  the  outlaw  leg  of 
mutton  !  And  so  in  its  greasy  and  spluttering  flame 
we  saw,  each  in  his  own  way,  that  Me  after  all  was 
worth  living.  We  gathered  round  and  sat  in  the 
warmth,  nibbling  at  fried  bully  beef  and  swapping 
yarns,  regardless  of  wars  or  War  Lords.  That 
Christmas  night  was  well  on  its  way  to  relegation 
among  the  happy  and  curious  incidents  of  life,  when 
a  nasty  shriek  sounded  and  a  dull  'phoof '  of  an  ex 
ploding  gas  shell.  We  donned  our  gas  helmets  and 
in  a  spirit  of  braggadocio  infused  by  our  fire,  allowed 
248 


CHRISTMAS    GREENS 

the  mutton  to  burn  on  as  a  further  inducement  to 
the  prowess  of  the  Austrian  gunners.  Fortune  must 
have  felt  benevolent,  because  we  sat  for  about  three 
quarters  of  an  hour  in  the  glow  before  it  spluttered 
out.  And  the  happy  ending  came  at  four  in  the 
morning  with  the  ration  train  of  mules. 

G.  J.  S., 
Mankota,  Sask.,  Canada." 

Reader,  do  you  think  the  war  has  spoiled  Christ 
mas?  Do  you  believe  the  coming  revolution,  the 
social  upheave,  the  triumph  of  materialism,  the 
anarchy,  or  the  dictatorship  of  the  proletariat,  or 
whatever  may  be  before  us,  is  going  to  destroy  it, 
and  leave  no  room  for  its  return  ?  I  tell  you,  no ! 

Whatever  turnings  and  overturnings,  whatever 
calamity  and  ruin,  are  in  store  for  this  battered 
old  world,  you  and  I  will  never  be  poorer  than  the 
blessed  Mary  and  Joseph  when  they  walked  to 
Bethlehem,  and  that  same  night 

"The  stars  in  the  bright  sky  looked  down  where  He  lay, — 
The  little  Lord  Jesus  asleep  on  the  hay." 

Whatever  fantasies  of  government   or  no-govern 
ment  the  brains  of  men  may  devise,  the  heart  of 
249 


CAMP-FIRES 

man  will  always  ask  and  take  a  day  of  rest  and  peace, 
gladness  and  good-will  to  sweeten  the  long  year. 

So  let  us  put  up  our  bits  of  Christmas  green, 
brother,  with  brave  and  cheerful  hearts:  and  if 
we  want  something  to  strengthen  and  steady  us, 
we  will  read  by  our  camp-fire  this  verse  of  Charles 
Kingsley: 

"O  blessed  day,  which  giv'st  the  eternal  lie 
To  self,  and  sense,  and  all  the  brute  within; 
O  come  to  us  amid  this  war  of  life; 
To  hall  and  hovel  come:  to  all  who  toil, 
In  senate,  shop,  or  study;  and  to  those 
Who  sundered  by  the  wastes  of  half  a  world, 
Ill-warned  and  sorely  tempted,  ever  face 
Nature's  brute  powers,  and  men  unmanned  to  brutes. 
Come  to  them,  blest  and  blessing,  Christmas  Day ! 
Tell  them  once  more  the  tale  of  Bethlehem, 
And  kneeling  shepherds,  and  the  Babe  Divine, 
And  keep  them  men  indeed,  fair  Christmas  Day." 


250 


XVII 
ON    SAYING    GOOD-BYE 

1HE  words  consecrated  by  custom  for  use  at 
meeting  and  at  parting  take  on  a  certain  formal 
quality  by  reason  of  their  very  sameness  and  oft 
repetition.  For  the  most  part  they  are  but  verbal 
gestures  of  politeness.  We  exchange  them  as  mere 
tokens  or  counters  of  speech,  without  too  curiously 
considering  the  metal  whereof  they  are  made,  or 
their  weight  and  value  in  the  exact  scales  of  reason. 
On  this  ground  some  severe  and  haughty  spirits 
affect  to  scorn  them.  Yet,  after  all,  if  they  serve 
their  purpose  as  signs  of  courtesy  and  friendliness 
in  the  quotidian  come-and-go  of  life,  why  should 
we  ask  more  of  them?  The  greater,  (though  not 
the  better,)  part  of  our  existence  is  composed  of 
things  whose  general  worth  doth  not  depend  upon 
their  particular  importance.  They  are  of  that  "  daily 
bread"  which  it  behooves  us  to  beseech  with  hu 
mility  and  accept  with  thankfulness.  And  believe 
me,  reader,  we  digest  it  better  without  a  careful 
computation  of  the  calories  which  it  contains,  or 
251 


CAMP-FIRES 

a  close  count  of  the  number  of  times  we  munch 
each  morsel. 

"Life  is  real,  life  is  earnest,"  says  the  poet;  and 
for  that  very  reason,  (being  put  together  as  we  are 
of  fatigable  flesh  and  indefatigable  spirit,  in  the 
proportion  of  a  stack  of  fuel  to  a  spark  of  flame,) 
our  conduct  of  life  should  rightly  have  its  large  and 
fitting  portion  of  things  done  easily  and  lightly, 
by  routine,  habit,  and  common  consent. 

Is  the  customary,  the  conventional,  always  to 
be  despised?  Shall  a  man  always  take  the  wrong 
side  of  the  road  only  to  prove  himself  original? 
After  all  the  road  hath  but  two  sides,  and  he  that 
taketh  ever  the  wrong  one,  to  show  his  liberal  genius, 
is  in  the  end  as  conventional  a  rogue  as  if  he  fol 
lowed  the  harmless  custom  of  the  country.  Nothing 
is  more  monotonous  than  a  habitual  irregularity. 

I  feel  and  admit  the  extraordinary  attractions 
of  change  and  novelty.  No  man  can  have  more  joy 
than  I  in  a  fresh  adventure.  Somewhat  too  much, 
indeed,  of  the  experimental  and  venturesome  there 
hath  always  been  in  my  temperament,  leading  me 
often  into  situations  from  which  it  was  difficult  to 
emerge  with  credit  and  skin  unbroken.  Even  now, 
many  failures  have  not  cured  me  of  this  fault. 
252 


ON    SAYING    GOOD-BYE 

But  familiarity  also  hath  its  charm,  and  I  count 
it  good  that  life  is  impregnated  with  it.  The  regular 
ways,  the  rules  of  the  game,  the  customs  of  courtesy, 
and  the  common  phrases  of  colloquial  speech, — 
these  are  pleasant  things  in  their  season,  (which  is 
daily,)  and  without  them  our  existence  would  be 
wayward,  rude,  exhausting,  and  far  less  tolerable 
than  it  is. 

So  with  the  salutations  we  exchange  as  we  meet 
and  part  on  the  highway  or  the  footpath  of  life: 
I  find  that  a  certain  regularity  and  matter-of-course 
in  them  is  not  so  much  a  defect,  as  a  necessity,  a 
wise  and  friendly  concession  to  the  limits  of  our 
inventive  power.  Meetings  and  partings  are  so 
common  that  their  proper  ritual  must  needs  be  of 
the  commonplace.  To  make  it  otherwise  would 
be  to  weave  the  plain  family  umbrella  of  cloth  of 
gold. 

What  should  we  do  if  it  were  required  of  us  to 
invent  a  new  gesture  of  greeting  every  time  we 
passed  a  lady  of  our  acquaintance  upon  the  street  ? 
Shall  not  the  time-honored  lifting  of  the  hat  suffice  ? 
You  may  give  it  a  special  flourish  or  grace-note,  I 
admit,  according  to  the  beauty  or  dignity  of  the 
lady,  or  the  degree  of  warmth  in  your  regard  for 
253 


CAMP-FIRES 

her.  But  these  are  matters  of  subtle  shading  and 
gradation.  The  gesture  remains  the  same:  "Mad 
am,  I  take  off  my  hat  to  you."  It  is  the  homage 
of  the  civilized  man  to  the  eternal  womanly. 

Granted,  then,  that  our  perpetual  business  of 
coming  and  going  must  evolve  its  formulas  of  ave 
atque  vale,  hail  and  farewell.  Granted  that  we  use 
them  by  convention  and  habit.  Granted  that  we 
say  "How  do  you  do?"  without  waiting  for  an 
answer,  and  "Good  day"  without  looking  at  the 
sky.  What  does  it  matter  ?  'Tis  not  the  bare  mean 
ing  of  the  word  that  counts,  but  the  spirit  in  which 
it  is  spoken:  good-will  at  meeting,  good  wishes  at 
parting, — can  you  ask,  or  give,  more? 

Yet  now  and  then  something  happens,  inward 
or  outward,  to  touch  these  familiar  phrases  with  a 
finger-ray  of  light,  so  that  we  regard  them  more 
attentively,  and  reflect  a  while  upon  their  origin 
and  propriety.  Maybe  we  would  fain  choose  among 
the  well-worn  stock  at  our  disposal  that  one  greet 
ing  which  hath  most  fitness  to  the  moment  and  to 
our  desire.  Maybe  we  would  fain  lend  to  the  mere 
syllables  of  farewell  some  special  tone  of  kindness, 
comfort,  or  regret,  to  make  it  linger  in  the  memory 
as  a  note  of  music  in  the  air. 
254 


ON    SAYING    GOOD-BYE 

Three  things  of  this  kind  have  moved  me  in  the 
choice  of  a  theme  for  this  essay. 

It  is  a  word  of  parting  from  a  year-long  occupa 
tion,  and  from  the  friendly  readers,  near  and  far, 
who  have  sat  with  me  in  spirit  beside  these  camp- 
fires. 

Moreover,  it  belongs  to  the  season  of  the  year's 
decline  and  fall,  that  last  of  old  December  which 
must  precede  the  first  of  new  January;  and  though 
Charles  Lamb  calleth  New  Year's  Day  every  man's 
second  birthday,  "the  nativity  of  our  common 
Adam,"  I  note  that  his  little  essay  on  the  subject, 
(true  as  his  writing  always  is  to  the  depth  of  human 
nature,)  dwelleth  more  on  the  losses  than  on  the 
gains  of  this  anniversary.  It  is  epicedial, — more 
of  a  farewell  to  the  parting  than  a  welcome  to  the 
coming  guest, — and  so  is  most  poetry,  ten  times 
vale,  to  once  ave! 

Finally,  I  find  myself  now  upon  that  stage  of 
life's  journey  wherein  the  milestones,  as  Lowell  said, 
seem  altered  into  gravestones, — at  least  by  the 
evening  light.  Or,  if  that  figure  is  too  sombre  for 
you,  (and  I  confess  in  my  own  judgment  it  hath 
too  cemeterial  a  shade  for  a  whole  truth,)  then  let 
me  use  a  simpler  metaphor  and  say:  I  have  come 
255 


CAMP-FIRES 

so  far  along  the  way  that  I  have  surely  more  part 
ings  to  remember  than  meetings  to  expect,  on  the 
terrestrial  road.  So,  then,  it  is  thrice  natural  at 
this  time  that  I  should  write  a  little  essay  "on  say 
ing  good-bye." 

The  word  has  a  beautiful,  sacred  meaning,  which 
is  lost  to  view  when  we  spell  it  "Good-by."  It  is 
really  a  contraction  of  the  phrase  God-be-with-ye, 
and  is  even  lovelier  than  the  French  "Adieu," — a 
deep,  holy  word. 

But  I  have  often  wondered  why  we  have  no  part 
ing  phrase  in  English  to  express  what  we  so  clearly 
hear  in  other  tongues, — the  lively  hope  of  meeting 
again.  The  Germans  say  auf  Wiederseheny — do 
you  remember  Lowell's  lovely  lyric  with  that  title  ? 
— and  the  Italians,  a  rivederci,  and  the  French,  au 
revoir.  All  these  are  fitting  and  graceful  words; 
they  solace  the  daily  separations  of  life  with  the 
pleasant  promise  that  we  shall  see  each  other  again, 
— a  bientot,  the  French  say  sometimes,  as  if  to  un 
derline  the  wish  that  the  next  meeting  may  be 
soon. 

Why  should  we  be  forced  to  use  a  foreign  phrase 
for  such  a  native  feeling?  Yet  what  English  word 
is  there  that  briefly  and  precisely  utters  this  senti- 
256 


ON    SAYING    GOOD-BYE 

ment?  The  nearest  to  it  is  the  modern  colloquial 
ism,  So  long! 

This  comes,  I  fancy,  from  London;  it  is  a  bit  of 
Cockney  dialect.  The  dictionary  of  "Passing  Eng 
lish  of  the  Victorian  Era,"  (suspicious  title !)  says 
that  it  is  a  corruption  of  the  Jewish  word  selah,  used 
in  the  Whitechapel  district  as  a  form  of  good-bye. 
Of  this  I  have  my  doubts,  both  whether  selah  is  used 
in  that  way,  and  whether  it  could  be  twisted  into 
"so  long."  Salaam,  or  shalom,  the  Eastern  saluta 
tion  of  peace,  seems  to  me  a  more  likely  derivation. 

But  why  go  so  far  afield  ?  Have  not  the  syllables 
«o  long  in  themselves  a  meaning,  or  at  least  a  hint 
of  meaning,  that  comes  close  to  what  we  want? 
So  long  as  we  are  parted  may  no  harm  befall  you ! 
Till  we  meet  again,  it  will  seem  so  long!  I  profess 
a  liking  for  this  child  of  the  street  who  brings  us 
what  we  need.  I  would  take  him  in,  adopt  him, 
make  him  of  the  household.  Has  not  his  name 
been  used  already  by  Walt  Whitman  as  the  title 
of  a  good  poem  ? 

"While  the  pleasure  is  yet  at  the  full,  I  whisper,  So  long! 

The  unknown  sphere,  more  real  than  I  dreamed,  more 
direct,  awakening  rays  about  me — So  long  /" 
257 


CAMP-FIRES 

The  next  time  I  have  to  bid  good-bye  to  a  person 
not  too  dignified  to  be  loved, — the  next  time  I  have 
to  leave  a  scene  or  an  edifice  not  too  grandiose  to 
be  dear, — the  next  time,  I  am  going  to  say,  boldly 
and  cheerfully,  So  long!  and  I  care  not  who  hears 
me. 

It  is  a  comfort  that  so  many  of  our  frequent  part 
ings  in  this  sublunary  sphere  are  temporary  and 
carry  with  them  the  possibility  of  reunion.  You 
shake  hands  regretfully  with  a  good  companion  as 
you  leave  the  ship, — you  going  east,  he  going  west, 
— yet  the  world  is  small  and  round, — suddenly  you 
and  he  turn  a  corner  in  Tokyo  or  Cairo,  and  there 
you  are,  gladly  shaking  hands  again.  You  finish 
a  task  this  year,  and  feel  half  lost  as  you  let  it  go. 
But  next  year  you  shall  find  yourself  busy  with 
another  task  so  like  the  first  that  you  are  sure  it 
must  be  a  reincarnation.  You  listen  to  some  favorite 
actor  or  singer  on  a  "farewell"  tour,  and  sigh  that 
you  shall  hear  that  voice  no  more.  Yet  it  falls  again 
upon  your  ear  with  the  old,  familiar  cadence.  I 
will  not  tell  how  many  years  ago  I  mourned  at  Mary 
Anderson's  good-bye  to  the  stage.  But  it  is  less 
than  four  years  since  I  crept  out  of  hospital  in  Lon 
don  and  saw  her  again  in  Pygmalion  and  Galatea, 
258 


ON    SAYING    GOOD-BYE 

her  face  and  form  as  lovely,  her  liquid  voice  as 
entrancing  as  ever.  Instead  of  "farewell"  tours, 
let  our  well-beloved  players  give  us  "so  long"  tours, 
— with  bright  promise  of  return. 

Of  places,  too,  while  we  live  there  is  ever  this 
hope  of  another  sight.  I  remember  it  was  in  the 
summer  of  1888  that  my  lady  Graygown  and  I  bade 
farewell  to  Norway,  not  expecting  to  look  upon 
those  huge  rounded  mountains,  green  vales,  and 
flashing  waters  again.  Yet  we  saw  them  once  more 
in  the  summer  of  1916, — a  most  unlikely  time, — 
the  very  heart  and  centre  of  the  wild  tempest  of 
war.  But  the  high  hills  of  Voss  gave  back  no  echo 
of  the  world-tumult,  and  the  swift-flowing  Evanger 
had  no  tinge  of  crimson  in  its  crystal  current. 

Peace  rested  round  our  little  wooden  cottage  in 
its  old-fashioned  garden,  on  the  point  between  the 
rushing  river  and  the  placid  lake.  Peace  lay  upon 
the  far  mountain-ridges,  touched  here  and  there 
with  gleams  of  vanishing  snow.  Peace  walked  in 
the  smooth,  sloping  meadows  where  the  farmer- 
folk,  prolonging  pleasant  labor  late  into  the  luminous 
night,  hung  the  long  racks  of  harvest  with  honey- 
scented  hay.  Peace  floated  in  the  air  over  the  white 
rapids  and  translucent  green  pools  of  the  stream 
259 


CAMP-FIRES 

where  I  cast  the  fly,  and  welcomed  me  walking  home 
at  midnight,  carrying  a  brace  of  silver  salmon, 
through  the  little  square  where  the  old  villagers  sat 
reading  their  newspapers  by  the  lingering  light  of 
the  northern  sky  and  chatting 

"Of  new,  unhappy,  far-off  things 
And  battles  yesterday" 

They  gossiped  also,  I  was  sure,  of  homelier  sub 
jects,— 

"Familiar  matter  of  to-day, — 
Some  natural  sorrow,  loss,  or  pain, 
That  has  been,  and  may  be  again !" 

Were  they  wrong,  those  ancient  cronies,  in  tak 
ing  their  ease  for  an  hour  between  ebbing  daylight 
and  rising  dawn?  And  was  I  wrong  to  relish  that 
peaceful  fortnight  of  Norway  revisited, — that  steady 
ing  interval  of  quiet  amid  long  months  of  strenuous 
duty  on  the  very  edge  of  war's  black  and  bloody 
gulf?  Nay  then,  if  you  blame  me,  reader,  I  must 
even  bear  your  censure  and  contempt  with  the  same 
philosophy  which  hath  often  helped  me  through 
life's  hard  places  and  bitter  seasons. 

Rough  is  the  road,  and  often  dark;  frequented 
by  outlaws  and  sturdy  beggars;  encumbered  with 
260 


ON    SAYING    GOOD-BYE 

wrecks  of  goodly  equipages,  and  bodies  of  wounded 
travellers;  full  of  cripples,  and  weary  folk  who  are 
ready  to  faint  and  fall,  and  overladen  beasts  and 
men,  and  little  lost  children.  At  every  turn  we  meet 
some  disappointment  or  grief;  in  the  long  level 
stretches  there  is  blinding  heat  and  dust;  and  in 
the  steep  high  places,  cold  and  solitude.  It  is  no 
primrose  path,  but  a  way  of  trial  and  trouble, — 
yes,  at  times  a  very  via  dolor  osa,  a  way  of  grief. 

And  yet, — truth  to  tell, — are  there  not  consola 
tions  and  encouragements  along  the  way?  Rest 
ing-places  like  that  house  in  Bethany  where  the 
Master  found  repose  and  love;  wide  and  cheering 
outlooks  from  the  brow  of  the  hill,  snug  shelters 
in  the  bosom  of  the  vale,  camp-fires  beneath  the 
trees,  wayside  springs  and  fountains  flowing  among 
the  rocks  or  trickling  through  the  moss  ?  Here  will 
I  stop,  and  stoop,  and  drink  deep  refreshment.  Share 
with  me !  Music  and  friendship  and  nature, — sleep 
and  dreams  and  rested  waking  in  the  light  of  morn, 
— to  these  we  say  not  good-bye,  but  so  long  !  They 
will  always  keep  something  for  us,  something  to 
come  back  to;  and  if  we  are  content  with  little, 
enough  will  be  better  than  a  feast. 

Let  us  be  honest  with  ourselves,  and  own  that 
261 


CAMP-FIRES 

the  return  is  never  quite  the  same  as  the  first  ex 
perience.  It  may  be  more,  it  may  be  less,  but  it 
always  has  a  shade  of  difference.  One  thing  is 
surely  lost,  the  touch  of  surprise, — 

"The  first  fine  careless  rapture." 

But  by  way  of  recompense  there  may  come  a 
deeper  understanding,  a  more  penetrating  sym 
pathy.  It  is  so,  I  think,  with  great  music.  The 
third  or  fourth  hearing  of  a  noble  symphony  is  per 
haps  the  best.  After  that  our  delight  varies,  rising 
or  falling  with  our  mood,  or  with  the  outward  cir 
cumstances.  It  is  so  with  our  best-beloved  books, 
— companionable  books, — books  made  for  many 
readings.  Their  inward  charm  outwears  their  bind 
ing.  As  often  as  we  revisit  them  after  a  brief  sepa 
ration  they  tell  us  something  new,  or  something 
old  with  a  new  meaning.  Yet  one  thing  they  offer 
us  but  once, — that  which  Keats  describes  in  his 
sonnet  "On  First  Looking  into  Chapman's  Homer," 
— the  joy  of  discovery.  I  confess  that  I  would  give 
a  thousand  dollars  if  I  had  never  read  Henry  Esmond 
or  Lvrna  Doone, — so  that  I  might  have  the  delight 
of  reading  them  for  the  first  time.  But  to  make 
it  quite  complete  perhaps  I  should  need  also  to  give 
262 


ON    SAYING    GOOD-BYE 

an  extra  tip  to  the  old  Timekeeper  and  persuade 
him  to  set  my  clock  back  fifty  years. 

Many  of  our  farewells  are  unconscious.  You 
lend  a  book,  and  it  is  never  brought  back.  You 
leave  a  place,  and  find  no  opportunity  or  pathway 
of  return.  You  part  from  a  friend,  in  anger  or  in 
sorrow,  or  it  may  be  simply  in  the  casual  way  with 
no  special  feeling, — and  lo,  the  impenetrable  cur 
tain  falls  and  the  familiar  face  is  hidden  forever. 

So  much  are  we  at  the  mercy  of  the  unknown  in 
this  regard,  that  if  we  thought  of  it  too  closely  and 
constantly  it  would  unhinge  reason  and  darken 
life  with  an  intolerable  gloom.  Every  departing 
carriage  would  bear  black  plumes,  and  on  every 
ship  that  sailed  away  from  us  we  should  see  a  ghostly 
Charon  on  the  bridge.  We  should  be  trying  always 
to  speak  memorable  "last  words,"  instead  of  the 
cheerful,  heartening  so  long  which  befits  our  ordi 
nary  occasions. 

Here  memory  helps  us  to  be  sane,  if  we  trust  her. 
For  we  know  that  whatever  hath  entered  deeply 
into  our  being  is  never  altogether  rapt  away.  The 
scene  that  we  have  loved, 

"This  town's  fair  face,  yonder  river's  line, 
The  mountain  round  it  and  the  sky  above," 
263 


CAMP-FIRES 

cannot  be  blotted  from  the  inward  vision.  Nor 
can  the  soul  that  hath  companioned  ours  through 
days  and  nights  of  bright  and  dark,  turn  a  corner 
into  oblivion.  Though  much  is  taken,  more  remains, 
— the  very  cadence  of  the  voice,  the  clasp  of  the 
hand,  the  light  in  the  eyes,  "the  sweet  assurance 
of  a  look," — these  are  treasures  laid  up  in  the  heaven 
of  remembrance  where  thieves  do  not  break  through 
nor  steal. 

Strange,  how  the  last  sight  or  the  last  word  of  a 
friend  is  not  always  the  one  that  we  recall  most 
vividly.  It  is  often  some  chance  phrase,  some  un- 
meditated  look  or  gesture.  As  if  nature  would  say 
to  us,  (even  as  the  Master  said,)  "Take  no  thought, 
be  not  anxious,  for  the  morrow:  be. yourself  to-day: 
so  you  will  be  remembered.'* 

It  hath  been  my  lot,  (having  lived  too  long,)  to 
conduct  the  funeral,  or  pronounce  a  memorial  ad 
dress,  for  many  friends  more  renowned  than  I  shall 
ever  be, — Governor  E.  D.  Morgan,  ex-President 
Cleveland,  Mark  Twain,  Clarence  King,  Edmund 
Clarence  Stedman,  John  Bigelow,  Hamilton  Mabie, 
Sir  William  Osier,  William  Dean  Howells, — and 
each  of  these  lives  in  my  memory  by  something 
very  simple  and  not  at  all  famous:  a  little  name- 
264 


ON    SAYING    GOOD-BYE 

less  act  of  every-day  kindness  or  courage,  a  self- 
revealing  look  of  wonder  or  joy  or  regret,  a  good 
word  let  fall  by  hazard  at  the  crossroads, — in  brief 
a  natural,  unintended,  real  good-bye. 

No  doubt  the  world  grows  poorer  by  the  loss  of 
such  friends, — yes,  and  of  others  most  dear  to  my 
heart:  the  father  whose  firm  loving  hand  set  my 
fingers  on  life's  bow  and  taught  me  to  draw  the 
arrow  to  the  head;  the  bright-faced,  daring  lad 
on  whom  the  half  of  my  hope  was  staked;  the  girl 
with  golden  hair  and  warm  brown  eyes  who  was  to 
me  "a  song  in  the  house  of  my  pilgrimage."  Poorer, 
— ay  de  mi!  What  honest  man  dare  deny  that  the 
parting  from  such  comrades  leaves  life  poorer  ?  But 
against  all  inconsolable  grievers  and  complainers, 
(and  most  of  all  against  my  own  rebel  thoughts,) 
I  maintain  and  will  ever  maintain  that  life  is  also 
richer,  immeasurably  richer  than  it  would  be  if 
these  treasures  had  not  been  loaned  to  us  for  a  while. 

"Death,"  said  Stevenson,  "outdoes  all  other 
accidents  because  it  is  the  last  of  them."  There 
is  something  taken  for  granted  in  that  word  "acci 
dent"  which  I  would  not  altogether  admit.  But 
when  our  grim  and  genial  essayist  goes  on  to  speak 
of  the  slight  influence  which  the  prospect  of  death 
265 


CAMP-FIRES 

and  its  certain  uncertainty  exercise  upon  our  daily 
conduct,  and  of  the  folly  of  allowing  it  to  play  the 
master  in  our  thought  and  drive  us  like  slaves  to 
a  hundred  trembling  compliances  and  evasions,  I 
follow  him  fully  and  find  him  right. 

A  friend  once  begged  Woodrow  Wilson  not  to 
risk  his  life  by  marching  in  a  long  procession  through 
an  excited  city, — "the  country  cannot  afford  to 
lose  its  President."  Like  a  flash  came  his  answer, 
"The  country  cannot  afford  to  have  a  coward  for 
President." 

It  is  a  strange  fact,  and  worth  noting,  that  those 
who  have  most  to  do  with  death, — like  doctors  and 
nurses  and  ministers, — are  not  much  perturbed  by 
it.  They  are  of  the  same  mind  as  Cato,  in  Cicero's 
dialogue  On  Old  Age:  "satisfy  the  call  of  duty  and 
disregard  death." 

There  is  a  curious  illustration  of  this  written  by 
Procopius  and  cited  by  Anatole  Le  Braz  in  his  won 
derful  book  La  Legende  de  la  Mort.  Here  it  is: 

"At  the  beginning  of  the  sixth  century  after 
Christ,  the  island  of  Britain  was  popularly  believed 
to  be  the  country  of  the  dead.  On  the  opposite 
coast  of  Brittany,  says  Procopius,  there  are  scat 
tered  many  villages  whose  peoples  follow  fishing 
266 


ON    SAYING    GOOD-BYE 

and  farming  for  their  living.  Subjects  of  the  Franks 
in  all  other  respects,  they  are  excused  from  paying 
tribute,  because  of  a  certain  service  ('tis  their  word,) 
which  they  say  has  been  laid  upon  them  since  a 
remote  epoch :  they  claim  to  be  under  vows  as  *  the 
ferrymen  of  souls.'  At  night  they  are  suddenly 
roused  from  sleep  by  a  loud  knocking  at  the  door: 
a  voice  outside  calls  them  to  their  task.  They  rise 
in  haste;  it  would  be  vain  to  refuse  obedience;  a 
mysterious  force  drags  them  from  their  home  to 
the  beach.  There  they  find  boats,  not  their  own, 
but  stranger-boats.  They  look  empty,  but  in  reality 
they  are  full  of  people,  loaded  down  almost  to  the 
sinking-point, — the  water  laps  along  the  gunwale. 
The  ferrymen  embark  and  take  the  oars.  An  hour 
afterward,  despite  the  heavy  load  of  invisible  pas 
sengers,  they  reach  the  island, — a  voyage  which 
ordinarily  requires  not  less  than  a  day  and  a  night. 
Hardly  have  the  boats  touched  shore  when  they  are 
quickly  lightened,  though  the  rowers  cannot  see 
any  of  their  fellow-travellers  debark.  A  voice  is 
heard  on  the  land, — the  same  which  waked  the 
rowers  in  their  beds.  It  is  the  Conductor  of  Souls 
presenting  the  dead  whom  he  brings,  one  by  one, 
to  those  appointed  to  receive  them.  The  men  he 
267 


CAMP-FIRES 

calls  by  their  fathers*  names;  the  women,  if  there 
are  any,  by  the  names  of  their  husbands;  and  of 
each  shade  he  tells  what  work  it  did  while  living." 

There  the  legend  breaks  off.  But  what  becomes 
of  the  boats?  And  what  of  the  ferrymen  of  souls, 
with  their  oars  dripping,  and  their  tanned  faces 
gleaming  in  the  misty  starlight  ?  Undoubtedly  they 
row  home  to  their  Breton  coast,  and  go  to  bed  and 
sleep  late,  and  rise  again  to  their  fishing  and  their 
farming,  and  day  after  day  are  busy  and  lazy  and 
quarrelsome  and  tranquil  and  merry  and  unsatis 
fied,  (even  as  you  and  I,)  until  the  next  knocking 
at  the  door  by  night,  and  the  next  call  from  the 
dark,  and  the  time,  at  last,  when  their  own  names 
will  be  on  the  list  of  passengers. 

For  what  port?  Methinks  I  know;  for  One  who 
is  worthy  of  all  trust,  my  Pilot,  hath  spoken  a 
name  to  me  and  told  me  not  to  be  afraid.  But  where 
it  lies,  that  haven  of  salvaged  ships  and  of  forgiven 
failures,  and  when  or  on  what  course  it  will  be  ap 
proached,  I  know  not,  friend,  any  more  than  you. 

The  guide-posts  of  the  sea  are  the  stars.  And 
all  its  mighty  waters  lie  in  the  hollow  of  an  almighty 
hand. 

So  good-bye,  reader, — a  good  voyage, — so  long  ! 
268 


FELLOW    TRAVELLERS 

MEMOKIS  POSITA 


XVIII 

AN    OLD-STYLE    AMERICAN* 

THE  long,  useful,  honorable  career  of  John  Bige- 
low  was  marked  from  beginning  to  end  by  a  joyful 
attention  to  human  duties.  He  was  a  human  foun 
tain  of  sanely  directed  energy.  He  loved  to  be  in 
the  thick  of  things.  He  was  never  willing  to  retire, 
like  Shelley's  imaginary  reformers,  into  a  cave. 
He  steadfastly  pursued  the  active  life. 

But,  at  the  same  time,  he  was  a  follower  of  the 
contemplative  life.  He  loved  truth,  and  sought  for 
the  Heavenly  Wisdom  more  than  for  hid  treasure. 
Finding  her,  his  heart  was  glad,  and  he  took  counsel 
with  her  in  the  night  season.  Life  was  intensely 
real  to  him,  and  intensely  interesting,  because  it 
meant  more  than  the  eye  can  see  or  the  ear  can 
hear.  Guided  by  the  Bible,  and  by  Swedenborg, 
and  by  such  poets  as  Milton  and  Wordsworth  and 
Bryant,  he  learned  to  read  the  inward  heart  of  things 
beneath  their  outward  form.  But  the  more  his 

*Read  before  the  Century  Club,  New  York,  March  9,  1912. 
271 


CAMP-FIRES 

meditation  deepened,  the  more  his  action  was  in 
vigorated  and  directed  to  useful  ends. 

He  was  in  fact  a  common-sense  mystic,  refusing 
to  let  life  be  divided,  or  to  content  himself  with 
either  half.  He  belonged  to  the  double  tribe  of 
Joseph,  both  dreamers  and  doers,  men  of  the  type  of 
Milton  and  Lincoln  and  Pasteur,  who  are  better 
citizens  on  earth  because  they  hold  fast  to  their 
citizenship  in  Heaven. 

John  Bigelow  was  born  in  1817,  at  the  village 
which  is  now  called  Maiden,  on  the  shores  of  the 
Hudson  River,  between  Kingston  and  Catskill. 
The  love  of  that  noble  stream  ran  through  his  life; 
beside  it  he  built  his  country  residence,  "The  Squir 
rels";  and  one  of  his  latest  public  utterances  was 
a  fervid,  almost  fiery,  letter  to  the  people,  in  con 
nection  with  the  Hudson-Fulton  Celebration  in 
1909,  urging  that  the  only  fitting  way  to  honor  the 
memory  of  those  men  would  be  to  protect  the  waters 
of  their  river  from  pollution  and  its  banks  from 
desecration,  that  it  might  flow  brightly  and  bravely 
to  the  sea,  "ready  to  appease  the  hunger  and  thirst 
of  millions."  There  was  always  something  con 
crete  and  practical  in  the  idealism  of  John  Bige 
low. 

272 


AN    OLD-STYLE    AMERICAN 

The  same  homely,  concrete  quality  marks  the 
boyhood  chapter  in  his  "Retrospections  of  an  Ac 
tive  Life."  He  makes  you  see  his  birthplace,  the 
old  farmhouse,  lighted  by  tallow  dips,  warmed  by 
huge  wood-fires,  with  its  big  kitchen,  its  spinning-  ^ 
wheels  and  tubs  of  goldenrod  dye,  its  cask  of  soft 
soap  in  the  woodshed,  and  its  cellar  crammed  with 
all  sorts  of  provisions,  "the  very  stomach  of  the 
house."  He  takes  you  with  him  driving  the  cows 
to  pasture,  and  into  the  snake-haunted  Eden  of  a 
certain  strawberry-meadow  (where  he  was  duly 
punished  for  picking  fruit  on  Sunday)  and  over 
the  river  to  a  dull  school  at  Sharon,  and  back  again 
to  his  native  district  school,  which  he  says  was  "  the 
only  school  in  which  I  was  conscious  of  having  re 
ceived  any  thorough  or  conscientious  instruction 
from  my  teachers."  He  gives  you  a  glimpse  of  a 
spelling-bee,  a  country  circus,  the  disastrous  conse 
quences  of  his  first  cigar,  his  first  attempt  to  com 
mend  himself  to  a  little  girl  by  wearing  his  Sunday 
clothes  on  a  week-day.  He  shows  you  his  father's 
big  country  store  by  the  river,  and  the  sloops  that 
carried  its  multifarious  trade,  and  the  father  him 
self,  six  feet  four  of  rugged  manhood,  a  Bible  Chris 
tian  and  a  convinced  Presbyterian,  but  withal  a 
273 


CAMP-jFIRES 

good  provider,  a  careful  farmer  and  shrewd  trader, 
"not  ascetical,  but  always  cheerful  and  sensible," 
a  very  human  sort  of  Puritan  and  good  to  live  with. 

Such  homes  as  this  were  favorable  starting-places 
for  young  Americans.  They  had  enough  rough 
ness  to  be  bracing,  enough  restraint  to  be  sobering, 
enough  elevation  of  thought  and  talk  to  be  enno 
bling,  and  enough  liberty  to  quicken  the  heart  with 
the  joy  of  living. 

Young  Bigelow  spent  three  years  at  a  college  in 
Hartford  without  getting  much  good,  and  finished 
his  course  at  Union  College  without  getting  any 
harm.  In  his  eighteenth  year,  he  left  home  to  study 
law;  starting  with  a  firm  at  Hudson,  where  he  used 
to  sweep  out  the  office  before  breakfast;  and  then 
going  to  New  York,  where  he  began  making  those 
friendships  of  the  royal  kind  which  are  only  pos 
sible  to  one  who  has  himself  a  royal  spirit, — among 
which  the  first  place  must  be  given  to  his  intimacies 
with  William  Cullen  Bryant,  Charles  O'Conor,  and 
Samuel  J.  Tilden.  After  that,  comes  the  long  list 
of  men  who  were  brought  into  relation  with  him 
by  a  common  interest  in  public  affairs, — Sumner, 
Preston  King,  Seward,  E.  D.  Morgan,  Cobden, 
John  Bright,  William  Hargreaves,  Laboulaye,  Mon- 
274 


AN    OLD-STYLE    AMERICAN 

talembert, — it  would  be  impossible  to  name  them 
all.  No  man  was  ever  richer  in  the  fruits  of  human 
intercourse  than  John  Bigelow,  for  in  this  kind  he 
was  both  a  generous  giver  and  a  grateful  receiver. 

Plutarch  tells  us  that  Plato,  at  the  close  of  his 
life,  found  cause  for  thankfulness  in  three  things: 
that  he  was  born  a  man,  not  a  beast;  that  he  was 
born  a  Greek,  not  a  barbarian;  and  that  he  was 
born  a  contemporary  of  Sophocles.  John  Bigelow 
was  one  of  Plutarch's  men,  and  I  think  he  would 
have  put  his  reasons  for  thanksgiving  thus:  "that 
I  was  born  a  man;  that  I  was  born  an  American; 
that  I  was  born  a  contemporary  of  Bryant."  For 
the  character  and  genius  of  this  illustrious  friend 
he  cherished  the  most  sincere  reverence.  He  tells 
us  that,  long  after  their  daily  intercourse  was 
terminated,  it  was  his  custom  to  test  what  he  had 
done,  or  proposed  to  do,  by  asking  himself:  "How 
would  Mr.  Bryant  act  under  similar  circum 
stances?"  "I  rarely  applied  this  test,"  he  adds, 
"without  receiving  a  clear  and  satisfactory  an 
swer." 

Such  a  talent  for  friendship  as  this  is  one  of  the 
marks  of  excellence,  not  of  the  Napoleonic  type, 
but  of  the  human,  companionable,  serviceable  kind. 
275 


CAMP-FIRES 

Admitted  to  the  bar  in  1838,  he  made  respectable, 
but  not  rapid,  progress  in  his  profession,  helping 
to  make  both  ends  meet  by  teaching  and  by  writing 
literary  articles  for  the  reviews  and  political  articles 
for  the  newspapers.  His  first  public  appointment 
was  as  an  inspector  of  the  State  Prison  at  Sing  Sing, 
in  which  position  he  did  good  work  for  reform. 

In  1846  the  alleged  war  with  Mexico  inaugurated 
the  real  conflict  between  Slavery  and  Freedom. 
Mr.  Bigelow  took  his  part  with  that  section  of  the 
Democracy  known  as  the  Free-Soil  Party,  of  which 
Martin  Van  Buren,  Silas  Wright,  and  Samuel  J. 
Tilden  were  leaders.  Mr.  Bigelow's  force  as  a  writer 
increased  as  his  interest  in  national  affairs  grew 
more  intense.  In  1848  he  was  invited  to  join  Mr. 
Bryant  in  the  ownership  and  editing  of  the  Eve- 
ning  Post,  the  ablest  organ  of  the  Free-Soil  Democ 
racy.  Charles  O'Conor,  although  belonging  to  the 
other  wing  of  the  party,  generously  indorsed  the 
notes  which  were  necessary  to  finance  the  arrange 
ment.  Thus  Mr.  Bigelow  entered  upon  the  most 
active  and  strenuous  period  of  his  labors,  and  worked 
as  a  fighting  editor  from  1848  till  1861,  when  he 
sold  his  interest  in  the  paper  and  resigned  his  chair 
to  his  friend  Mr.  Parke  Godwin. 
276 


AN    OLD-STYLE    AMERICAN 

Of  the  policy  of  the  Post  during  those  years  we 
have  his  own  description.  "The  questions  we  had 
to  discuss,  happily  for  me,  were  mainly  moral  ques 
tions.  We  were  for  freedom  against  slavery,  which 
was  the  piece  de  resistance  from  year  in  to  year  out. 
We  were  the  leading,  if  not  the  only,  champion  of 
a  revenue  tariff  as  against  a  protective  tariff,  in  all 
the  Northern  States.  We  hunted  with  almost  reck 
less  audacity  every  base  or  selfish  influence  that 
was  brought  to  bear  either  upon  legislation  or  ad 
ministration.  Hence,  although  we  always  professed 
to  be  Democrats  and  to  preach  what  we  regarded 
as  the  genuine  principles  of  popular  sovereignty, 
we  were  never  regarded  as  part  of  the  machine, 
and  rarely  were  even  as  tolerant  of  it  as  perhaps  at 
times  we  might  well  have  been." 

Precisely  so.  Not  only  toward  "the  machine" 
but  toward  other  objects  and  adversaries,  Mr.  Bige- 
low's  early  and  middle  manner  sometimes  betrayed 
a  lack  of  tolerance  that  bordered  on  acerbity.  He 
was  not  an  easy-going  man,  nor  by  nature  soft- 
spoken.  His  disposition  was  sanguine;  his  temper 
a  distinct  conductor  of  ardent  heat;  his  will  strong 
to  the  point  of  obstinacy.  Doubtless  the  tempta 
tions  of  an  editor's  irresponsible  power,  of  which 
277 


CAMP-FIRES 

he  wrote  so  feelingly  in  his  "Life  of  Bryant,"  may 
have  led  him  into  some  of  those  errata  that  he  de 
plored  as  inseparable  from  the  conduct  of  frail  and 
ignorant  humanity.  But  all  this  only  makes  it  the 
more  remarkable  and  praiseworthy  that  his  later 
manner  should  be  so  marked  by  consideration  and 
urbanity,  that  he  became  to  us  in  the  Century  Club 
the  very  type  and  model  of  the  high  courtesy  which 
(by  way  of  sad  confession)  we  call  "old-fashioned." 

A  gentleman,  I  take  it,  is  one  who  is  not  incapable 
of  anger,  but  capable  of  learning  to  control  it,  and 
who,  for  reasons  of  good-will,  sets  his  intelligence 
to  avoid  equally  the  giving  and  the  taking  of  offense. 

But  the  years  preceding  the  Civil  War  were  hot 
times,  in  which  offense  abounded.  Through  all  that 
heat  and  turbulence  and  confusion,  the  Evening 
Post  held  steadily,  if  not  always  serenely,  to  its 
moral  principles,  and  rendered  great  service  in  in 
spiring  and  guiding  the  independent  Democrats, 
whose  courage  and  self-sacrificing  loyalty  made 
possible  the  foundation  of  the  Republican  party, 
the  election  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  and  the  preserva 
tion  of  the  Union. 

Before  leaving  this  part  of  my  subject,  I  must 
say  a  word  as  to  the  kind  of  Democracy  in  which 
278 


AN    OLD-STYLE    AMERICAN 

Mr.  Bigelow  believed,  and  to  which  he  remained 
faithful  throughout  his  life.  He  was  no  friend  to 
absolutism  in  popular  sovereignty  any  more  than 
in  monarchy  or  empire.  He  held  that  the  rule  of 
the  people  should  be  self-limited  and  self-directed 
by  constitutional  restraint;  that  the  use  of  the 
suffrage  should  be  for  the  choice  of  representative 
and  executive  officers,  and  for  such  amendment  of 
the  Constitution  as  becomes  necessary  from  time 
to  time;  that  the  object  of  the  Republic  is  to  safe 
guard  the  development  of  the  native  energies  of  its 
citizens  unfettered  by  superfluous  legislation;  and 
above  all  that  a  democracy,  while  it  may  defend 
itself  by  arms,  can  only  propagate  its  ideas  by  ex 
ample.  He  was  in  fact  a  collective  individualist. 

He  thought,  not  that  the  Old  is  better  than  the 
New,  but  that  the  Old  is  necessary  to  the  New,  its 
root  and  spring.  Progressivism  he  disliked  for  its 
reactionary  tendencies.  He  expected  no  more  from 
political  organizations  and  combinations  than  was 
in  them,  knowing  that  "governments  like  clocks 
would  run  down  as  they  were  wound  up."  He  was 
of  the  school  of  Solon,  who  tried  "so  to  frame  his 
laws  as  to  make  it  evident  to  the  Athenians  that 
it  would  be  more  for  their  interest  to  observe  them 
279 


CAMP-FIRES 

than  to  transgress  them."  He  belonged  to  the 
party  of  the  wise  men  in  all  the  ages, — the  party 
that  knows  the  only  sure  way  to  better  the  social 
fabric  is  to  improve  the  moral  fibre  out  of  which 
it  must  be  woven. 

It  was  during  his  journalistic  period  that  three 
great  good  fortunes  came  to  Mr.  Bigelow;  first, 
the  beginning  of  his  happy  domestic  life,  by  his 
marriage  with  Miss  Jane  Poultney  in  1850;  second, 
the  commencement  of  his  life  as  an  author  in  1852, 
with  a  volume  called  "Jamaica  in  1850;  or  the 
Effect  of  Fifty  Years  of  Freedom  on  a  Slave 
Colony";  third,  the  recovery  of  his  faith  in  the 
Bible,  through  an  acquaintance  in  1853  with  the 
works  of  Emanuel  Swedenborg.  So,  close  together, 
he  found  the  three  immediate  jewels  of  the  soul: 
companionship,  vocation,  illumination. 

In  August,  1861,  President  Lincoln  appointed 
him  to  the  American  Consulship  in  Paris,  with  the 
idea  that  he  should  give  special  attention  to  the 
Press  in  France,  and  to  the  formation  of  public 
opinion  favorable  to  the  United  States.  A  man 
better  qualified  by  nature  and  training  for  such  a 
task  could  not  have  been  discovered. 

Mr.  Bigelow  was  a  representative  of  the  Spirit 
280 


AN    OLD-STYLE    AMERICAN 

of  America  in  the  sense  that  he  gave  a  personal 
impression  of  the  qualities  that  created  the  Revo 
lution  and  the  Republic:  self-reliance,  fair  play, 
energy,  love  of  the  common  order,  and  desire  of 
individual  development.  These  he  embodied  with 
a  singular  charm  of  simplicity  and  dignity  in  France 
during  our  Civil  War,  even  as  Benjamin  Franklin 
had  embodied  them  with  a  like  charm  during  our 
Revolution. 

The  services  of  these  two  persons  of  native  dis 
tinction  and  shrewdness, — the  one  in  winning  the 
alliance  of  France  in  our  struggle  for  liberty;  the 
other  in  preventing  the  hostility  and  interference 
of  France  in  our  struggle  for  Union, — were  of  a 
value  so  inestimable  that  it  is  difficult  to  measure 
between  them.  If  Bigelow's  task  was  easier  than 
Franklin's  by  reason  of  the  greater  national  re 
sources  and  powers  which  supported  it,  at  the  same 
time  it  was  more  difficult  by  just  so  much  as  the 
character  of  Louis  XVI  was  more  sincere,  generous, 
and  noble  than  the  character  of  Napoleon  III.  It 
was  a  fascinating  turn  of  fortune  that  Bigelow  was 
able,  at  the  close  of  his  French  residence,  to  recover 
for  his  country  the  manuscript  of  Franklin's  Auto 
biography,  and  to  publish  the  editio  princeps  of  the 
281 


CAMP-FIRES 

correct  text  of  that  extraordinary  little  book,  the 
first  American  classic. 

In  1865  he  was  appointed  by  Lincoln  to  succeed 
the  late  W.  L.  Dayton  as  Envoy  Extraordinary 
and  Minister  Plenipotentiary  to  the  Court  of 
France,  in  which  office  President  Johnson  continued 
him  until  Bigelow's  resignation  in  1866.  His  work 
in  connection  with  the  French  occupation  of  Mexico 
and  the  preposterous  but  none  the  less  dangerous 
schemes  involved  in  what  he  called  "The  Chromo 
Empire"  of  Maximilian,  was  done  with  a  firm,  deli 
cate,  and  masterly  hand. 

He  conveyed  warnings  to  Napoleon  and  his 
rather  sky-rockety  ministers  without  making 
threats.  He  encouraged  the  government  at  Wash 
ington  to  wait  with  dignity  for  the  inevitable  dSbdcle 
of  the  Franco-Austrian  house-of-cards,  rather  than 
to  plunge  rashly  into  a  superfluous  war  in  Mexico. 

His  letters  and  sayings  of  this  period  are  full  of 
pithy  eloquence  and  homespun  wit.  For  instance, 
he  says  to  Napoleon's  Foreign  Minister,  "It  is  as 
idle  to  suppose  that  you  can  disregard  a  great  na 
tional  feeling  as  that  you  can  annihilate  a  particle 
of  matter."  To  R.  H.  Dana  he  writes,  "I  hope 
282 


AN    OLD-STYLE    AMERICAN 

you  will  do  what  you  can  to  prevent  the  country 
getting  into  a  false  position  about  Mexico  and  con 
verting  a  sentiment  into  a  policy."  To  Seward: 
"There  is  a  way  of  saying  that  you  won't  be  bul 
lied  that  amounts  to  bullying."  Of  a  certain 
bishop:  "He  is  one  of  those  who  are  for  all  the 
freedoms  when  they  serve  the  Church  and  against 
them  when  they  don't."  Of  President  Johnson 
beginning  his  conflict  with  Congress:  "I  wish  he 
had  found  means  to  plough  around  this  stump  in 
stead  of  running  smack  into  it."  Of  the  approach 
of  the  Austro-Prussian  War:  "Europe  is  going  to 
war  as  people  sometimes  go  to  the  brandy-bottle 
to  get  rid  of  their  own  domestic  troubles,  and  with 
a  prospect  of  the  same  success." 

Still  more  clearly  do  Mr.  Bigelow's  natural 
sagacity  and  power  of  just  estimation  come  out 
in  his  appreciation  of  President  Lincoln.  "The 
greatness  of  Lincoln  must  be  sought  for  in  the  con 
stituents  of  his  moral  nature.  I  do  not  know  that 
history  has  made  a  record  of  the  attainment  of  any 
corresponding  eminence  by  any  other  man  who  so 
habitually,  so  constitutionally,  did  to  others  as  he 
would  have  them  do  to  him.  He  was  not  a  learned 
283 


CAMP-FIRES 

man.  But  the  spiritual  side  of  his  nature  was  so 
highly  organized  that  it  rendered  superfluous  much 
of  the  experience  which  to  most  men  is  indispensa 
ble, — the  choicest  prerogative  of  genius.  In  the 
ordinary  sense  of  the  word,  Lincoln  was  not  a 
statesman.  The  issues  presented  to  the  people 
at  the  Presidential  election  of  1860  were,  to  a  larger 
extent,  moral  questions,  humanly  speaking,  than 
were  those  presented  at  any  other  Presidential  elec 
tion.  .  .  .  Looking  back  upon  the  Administration, 
and  upon  all  the  blunders  which  from  a  worldly 
point  of  view,  Lincoln  and  his  advisers  seemed  to 
have  made,  and  then  pausing  to  consider  the  re 
sults  of  that  Administration,  ...  we  realize  that 
we  had  what  above  all  things  we  most  needed,  a 
President  who  walked  by  faith  and  not  by  sight; 
who  did  not  rely  upon  his  own  compass,  but  fol 
lowed  a  cloud  by  day  and  a  fire  by  night,  which 
he  had  learned  to  trust  implicitly." 

After  Mr.  Bigelow's  return  to  America,  he  was 
appointed  by  his  friend  Governor  Tilden,  in  1875, 
as  a  member  of  the  Commission  which  broke  up 
the  dishonest  Canal  Ring  of  New  York.  In  the  same 
year  he  was  elected  Secretary  of  State.  With  these 
284 


AN    OLD-STYLE    AMERICAN 

two  exceptions,  his  life  from  1867  to  1911  was  with 
drawn  from  political  office  and  devoted  to  public 
service. 

Mature  at  sixty,  mellow  at  seventy,  vigorous  at 
eighty,  venerable  at  ninety,  he  followed  and  finished 
his  chosen  course  of  usefulness,  with  eye  undimmed, 
joy  unabated,  and  courage  undismayed. 

To  those  of  us  who  knew  and  loved  him  in  his 
later  years,  he  seemed  a  living  link  between  the 
present  and  the  past.  But  his  power  to  join  old 
times  with  ours  lay  not  only  in  his  longevity,  but 
also  in  his  vitality.  His  interest  in  the  present  days 
was  no  less  than  in  the  days  that  are  gone.  He 
joyfully  admitted  that  many  changes  in  the  world 
had  been  for  the  better. 

He  was  not  one  of  those  old  men  who  think  to 
show  their  greatness  by  making  others  feel  small, 
their  venerableness  by  making  others  feel  juvenile. 
Retired  from  business  and  politics,  he  did  not  live 
in  retirement  and  idleness,  but  in  the  open,  will 
ingly  assuming  such  labors,  burdens,  and  studies 
as  he  conceived  would  enable  him  to  employ  his 
undiminished  strength  gratis  for  the  benefit  of  his 
country  and  his  city. 

285 


CAMP-FIRES 

Remembering  this  beautiful  and  fruitful  period 
of  John  Bigelow's  autumn,  we  think  not  so  much 
of  the  length  of  his  life  as  of  its  nobility,  and  recall 
for  him  the  words  of  that  fine  inscription  in  the 
Latin  Chapel  of  Christ  Church,  Oxford: 

"Non  enim  quae  longaeva  est  senectus 
honorata  est,  neque  numero  annorum  mul- 
torum  ;  sed  prudentia  hominibus  est  canities, 
et  vita  immaculata  est  senilis  aetas." 

His  literary  works  were  considerable,  both  in 
number  and  importance;  and  in  all  of  them  that 
I  have  read,  the  substance  and  the  style  are  marked 
and  distinguished  by  the  personality  of  the  author. 
This  is  one  of  the  indispensable  qualities  of  Litera 
ture,  which  calls  no  children  legitimate  who  do  not 
resemble  their  father. 

Chief  among  his  books,  I  would  name  his  Life 
of  Samuel  J.  Tilden;  his  admirable  monograph 
on  William  Cullen  Bryant,  whom  he  always  re 
garded  as  "America's  greatest  poet";  his  pro 
foundly  interesting  and  spiritually  suggestive 
volume  on  The  Mystery  of  Sleep;  and  finally 
his  three  rich  tomes  of  Retrospections  of  an  Active 
Life, — a  title  which  he  emphasized  with  some 
286 


AN    OLD-STYLE    AMERICAN 

particularity,  and  rightly,  for  it  defined  his  pur 
pose  and  revealed  his  character. 

There  was  always  something  definite  and  decided 
about  John  Bigelow.  He  knew  what  he  thought, 
and  said  it.  His  courtesy  was  not  of  the  nature 
of  compromise,  but  of  the  respect  due  to  others 
and  to  himself.  In  his  opinions,  his  theories  of  life, 
even  his  personal  tastes,  he  was  clear  and  positive. 
His  preferences  for  the  teachings  of  Swedenborg, 
for  the  practice  of  homeopathy,  for  the  doctrine 
of  free  trade,  and  for  temperance,  fresh  air,  and 
cheerfulness  as  the  elements  of  a  sound  hygiene, 
were  subject  to  polite  discussion  but  not  liable  to 
change.  I  imagine  that  nothing  short  of  an  amend 
ment  to  the  Constitution  would  have  induced  him 
to  give  up  his  horses  for  an  automobile. 

It  is  pleasant  and  profitable  to  bring  to  mind  his 
rugged  face,  his  lofty  figure,  his  simple-stately  ways 
as  he  moved  among  us,  bearing  the  burden  of  his 
ninety  years  with  a  certain  half-humorous,  half- 
pathetic,  wholly  virile  grace.  Recall  his  presence 
as  he  presided  in  the  Century  library,  cheerfully 
upholding  the  tradition  of  the  fellowship  from 
which  all  of  his  contemporaries  and  most  of  his 
earlier  friends  had  vanished.  Recollect  him  as  he 
287 


CAMP-FIRES 

appeared  fifteen  months  ago,  at  the  meeting  of 
the  American  Academy  in  the  New  Theatre,  to 
read  his  audaciously  delightful  paper  on  "A  Break 
fast  with  Alexander  Dumas,"  or  six  months  later 
when  he  spoke  at  the  opening  of  the  Public 
Library.  Or  best  of  all,  remember  him  as  he  used 
to  receive  his  friends  last  fall,  in  his  sunny  book- 
room  at  21  Gramercy  Park,  sitting  in  his  high- 
backed  chair,  reading,  dreaming,  or  working,  sur 
rounded  by  the  loving  care  of  children  and  grand 
children. 

Always  where  he  could  put  his  hand  upon  them, 
a  copy  of  the  Bible  and  a  volume  of  Swedenborg 
lay  beside  him.  Always  he  was  ready  to  talk  with 
unfailing  interest  and  vividness  of  old  times  or  new 
times,  of  the  progress  of  the  city,  of  the  union  of 
the  churches  on  the  basis  of  their  main  and  real 
beliefs,  of  the  improvement  of  the  world,  or  of  the 
mysteries  of  Heaven. 

Thus  he  waited,  not  idly  but  busily,  not  fear 
fully  but  bravely,  "in  the  confidence  of  a  certain 
faith,  in  the  comfort  of  a  reasonable,  religious  and 
holy  hope,"  for  the  coming  of  the  great  change, 
the  great  liberation,  the  great  promotion  from 
an  active  life  to  a  redeemed  immortality  of  ser- 
288 


AN    OLD-STYLE    AMERICAN 

vice.    So  John  Bigelow  passed  away  on  December 
19,  1911: 

"His  twelve  long  sunny  hours 
Bright  to  the  edge  of  darkness:  then  the  calm 
Repose  of  twilight  and  a  crown  of  stars !" 


289 


XIX 

INTERPRETER'S     HOUSE* 

A  TRIBUTE  to  the  memory  of  Hamilton  Wright 
Mabie  must  be  full  of  deep  and  warm  affection  if 
it  would  express  in  any  measure  the  thoughts  and 
feelings  of  the  many  who  knew  him  personally  in 
the  crowded  pilgrimage  of  American  life. 

He  was  a  man  with  a  genius  for  friendship. 
Religious  by  nature  and  holding  to  Christian  faith 
and  ideals  with  unalterable  conviction,  he  had  a 
simple,  beautiful,  reasonable  quality  of  manhood 
which  kept  him  from  ever  becoming  a  bigot,  a 
fanatic,  or  a  sentimentalist.  He  understood  hu 
man  nature,  with  all  its  faults  and  twists,  and  he 
loved  it  notwithstanding  all.  Steering  his  own 
course  with  a  steady  hand,  he  wished  not  to  judge 
or  dominate  other  men,  but  only  to  help  them  to 
see  the  star  by  which  he  steered  and  to  make  its 
light  more  useful  to  them  for  guidance.  Those 
who  came  to  him  for  counsel  got  it  clean  and 

*Read  before  the  American  Academy  of  Arts  and  Letters, 
April  10.  1919. 

290 


INTERPRETER'S    HOUSE 

straight,  often  with  that  touch  of  humor  which 
was  the  salt  of  his  discourse.  Those  who  disliked 
and  scorned  him  as  an  "old  fogy,"  and  pursued 
him  with  a  strange  malice  of  petty  mockery,  found 
him  silent,  tolerant,  content  to  go  forward  with 
his  own  work,  and  ready  to  help  them  if  they  got 
into  trouble.  He  was  the  most  open-minded  and 
kind-hearted  of  men.  To  his  acquaintances  and  his 
thousands  of  auditors  on  his  lecture  tours,  he  was  a 
voice  of  tranquil  wisdom,  genial  wit,  and  serene 
inspiration.  To  his  intimates  he  was  an  incompar 
able  comrade. 

I  came  to  know  him  well  only  after  he  had  passed 
middle  life.  But  I  felt  sure  that  the  spirit  which 
was  in  him  then,  had  animated  him  from  the  be 
ginning,  and  I  know  that  it  continued  to  illuminate 
him  to  the  end.  Mabie  was  not  a  man  to  falter  or 
recant.  He  advanced.  He  fulfilled  the  aim  of 
Wordsworth's  "Happy  Warrior,"  who 

"when  brought 

Among  the  tasks  of  real  life  hath  wrought 
Upon  the  task  that  pleased  his  childish  thought." 

He  was  born  at  Cold  Spring,  New  York,  in  1846, 
and  graduated  from  Williams  College  in  1867,  and 
291 


CAMP-FIRES 

from  the  Columbia  College  Law  School  in  1869. 
But  the  practice  of  law  as  a  profession  did  not  at 
tract  or  suit  him.  In  1879  he  became  an  editorial 
writer  for  The  Christian  Union,  a  religious  period 
ical  of  broadening  scope  and  influence,  which  de 
veloped  under  the  leadership  of  Lyman  Abbott 
and  Hamilton  Mabie  and  an  able  staff  into  the 
liberal,  national,  Christian  weekly  well  named  The 
Outlook. 

Mabie's  work  on  this  paper  was  constant,  de 
voted,  happy,  and  full  of  quiet  stimulus  to  clearer 
thinking  and  better  living.  Most  of  his  articles, 
which  must  have  numbered  thousands  during  his 
service  of  thirty-seven  years,  were  unsigned.  But 
they  bore  the  image  and  superscription  of  his  fine 
intelligence,  broad  sympathies,  and  high  standards 
both  in  literature  and  in  life.  They  were  not  ser 
mons.  They  were  plain  words  of  wisdom  uttered 
in  season.  They  were  sometimes  pungent, — for  he 
had  a  vivid  sense  of  righteousness, — but  they  were 
never  malicious  or  strident.  They  were  the  coun 
sels  of  a  well-wisher.  He  hated  evil,  but  when  he 
struck  at  it  he  desired  to  help  those  whom  it  had 
deluded  and  enslaved.  For  the  most  part  he  wrote 
from  the  positive  rather  than  from  the  negative 


INTERPRETER'S    HOUSE 

side,  preferring  the  praise  of  right  to  the  condem 
nation  of  wrong.  Something  in  his  character  per 
meated  his  style.  A  certain  unpretending  reason 
ableness,  a  tranquil  assurance  of  the  ultimate  vic 
tory  of  light  over  darkness,  an  understanding  sense 
of  the  perplexities  and  shadows  which  overcast  our 
mortal  life,  gave  to  the  words  which  he  wrote  from 
week  to  week  a  power  of  penetration  and  per 
suasion.  They  entered  myriads  of  homes  and 
hearts  for  good.  In  this  service  to  modern  life 
through  the  editorial  pages  of  The  Outlook  he  con 
tinued  gladly  and  faithfully  until  he  died,  on  New 
Year's  Eve,  1916. 

During  this  long  period  of  professional  labor  as 
a  writer  for  the  press,  he  developed  a  national  in 
fluence  perhaps  even  wider  as  a  public  lecturer  and 
an  author. 

No  man  in  America  was  more  welcome  to  an  in 
telligent  audience,  for  a  lyceum  lecture  or  a  com 
mencement  address,  than  Hamilton  Mabie.  Here 
his  personal  qualities  had  full  play,  even  more  than 
in  his  writing.  His  radiant  nature,  his  keen  sense 
of  humor,  his  ready  and  attractive  manner  of 
speech,  his  sympathy  with  all  sorts  and  conditions 
of  men  and  women,  gave  him  quick  and  easy  ac- 
293 


CAMP-FIRES 

cess  to  his  listeners.  He  reached  them  because  he 
took  the  trouble  to  open  the  doors. 

The  material  of  his  lectures,  as  in  the  case  of 
Emerson,  was  that  which  he  afterward  used  in  his 
books.  But  when  he  was  speaking  it  was  put  in  a 
different  form, — more  free,  more  colloquial,  adapted 
to  the  occasion.  Why  should  a  speaker  regard  his 
auditors  as  cast-iron  receptacles  for  a  dose  of  doc 
trine?  Mabie  never  did  that.  But  he  always  had 
something  to  say  that  was  serious,  well-considered, 
worth  thinking  about.  That  was  the  reason  why 
thoughtful  people  liked  to  hear  him.  He  was  a 
popular  lecturer  in  the  best  sense  of  the  phrase. 

The  demands  upon  his  time  and  strength  in  this 
field  were  incessant.  In  addition  he  met  the  con 
stant  appeal  of  humane  and  hopeful  causes  looking 
to  the  betterment  of  social  life, — like  the  Kinder 
garten  Society  of  which  he  was  for  many  years  the 
president.  To  these  calls  he  was  always  ready  to 
respond.  It  was  his  self-forgetfulness  in  such  work 
that  exhausted  his  strength  and  brought  on  his 
final  illness.  He  was  a  soldier  on  the  firing-line  of 
human  progress.  In  that  cause  he  was  glad  to  give 
his  life. 

His  books  have  deserved  and  had  a  wide  reading. 
294 


INTERPRETER'S    HOUSE 

They  show  the  clear  carefulness  of  this  thinking, 
the  depth  of  his  love  for  nature  and  human  nature* 
his  skill  as  a  writer  of  translucent  English. 

Nothing  could  be  better  for  the  purpose  for  which 
they  were  intended  than  the  volumes  in  which  he 
rendered,  for  the  boys  and  girls  of  to-day,  the  great 
stories  and  legends  of  the  past, — Norse  Stories 
from  the  Eddas,  Myths  Every  Child  Should  Know, 
Heroes  Every  Child  Should  Know,  and  so  on. 

But  much  more  significant  and  original  is  the 
series  of  books  in  which  he  made  his  contribution 
to  the  art  of  essay-writing, — My  Study  Fire,  Under 
the  Trees  and  Elsewhere,  Short  Studies  in  Literature. 
These  are  rich  in  the  fruits  of  observation  in  the 
home,  the  library,  the  great  out-of-doors, — 

"  The  harvest  of  a  quiet  eye 
That  broods  and  sleeps  on  his  own  heart." 

These  volumes  were  followed  by  others  in  which 
he  expressed  his  deepening  thoughts  on  the  unity 
and  the  beauty  of  life  in  brief  essays  on  Nature 
and  Culture,  Books  and  Culture,  Work  and  Culture, 
The  Life  of  the  Spirit,  and  The  Great  Word,— by 
which  he  means  Love,  not  blind  and  selfish,  but 
open-eyed,  intelligent,  generous.  A  fine  ideal 
295 


CAMP-FIRES 

guides  the  course  of  all  these  essays, — an  ideal 
of  the  co-operation  of  nature  and  books  and  work 
in  the  unfolding  of  personality.  Culture,  in  that 
sense,  was  Mabie's  conception  of  the  best  reward 
that  life  has  to  give.  Kultur,  in  the  German  sense, 
machine-made  and  iron-bound,  he  despised  and 
hated.  For  this  and  other  reasons  he  was  ardent 
for  the  cause  of  the  free  and  civilized  nations 
against  Germany  in  the  barbaric  war  which  she 
forced  upon  the  world  in  1914. 

But  the  bulk  of  his  work  was  done  before  this 
sharp  and  bitter  crisis,  in  a  period  of  general  tran 
quillity,  through  which  his  writing  flows  like  a  pure 
and  fertilizing  stream  in  a  landscape.  He  was  an 
optimist,  but  not  of  the  rose-water  variety.  He 
knew  that  life  involves  painful  effort,  hard  conflict. 
Nevertheless,  he  believed  that  for  those  who  will 
face  the  conflict  and  make  the  effort,  help  and  vic 
tory  are  sure.  He  was  a  critic,  delighting  to  read 
and  comment  upon  the  great  books, — Homer,  the 
Greek  Tragedies,  the  Mediaeval  Epics,  Dante, 
Shakespeare,  Milton,  and  the  more  modern  classics. 
But  he  was  not  a  technical  and  scholastic  critic. 
He  sought  to  catch  the  spirit  and  meaning  of  the 
literature  which  he  loved.  His  work  always  re- 
296 


INTERPRETER'S    HOUSE 

minds  me  of  that  passage  in  the  Pilgrim' *s  Progress 
which  describes  the  "House  of  the  Interpreter." 
The  beauty  of  his  comment  on  the  classics  is  that 
it  has  a  way  of  being  right  about  their  real  signif 
icance. 

This  is  true  of  his  most  important  critical  work, 
— William  Shakespeare,  Poet,  Dramatist,  and  Man. 
On  this  volume  he  spent  long,  loving,  patient 
study  and  toil.  The  result  was  one  of  the  best, 
clearest,  most  readable  and  illuminating  books  in 
Shakespearean  literature.  Its  central  thesis, — that 
Shakespeare's  poetic  genius,  his  gift  of  vision,  pas 
sion,  and  imagination,  was  the  spring  of  his  power, 
and  that  therefore,  despite  our  imperfect  knowl 
edge  of  his  biography,  we  may  be  sure  of  his  great 
ness  as  a  man, — is  thoroughly  sound.  It  is  set  forth 
with  admirable  lucidity  and  abundant  illustration. 

There  is  one  of  Mabie's  books  which  is  less  known 
than  others.  It  is  called  A  Child  of  Nature.  It 
represents  his  first  and  only  attempt,  so  far  as  I 
know,  in  the  field  of  fiction.  But  it  is  fiction  of  a 
peculiar  type, — no  plot,  little  dialogue,  no  incidents 
except  birth  and  death  and  the  ordinary  run  of 
life  in  the  New  England  village  where  "John  Fos 
ter"  spent  his  days.  The  theme  of  the  book,  de- 
297 


CAMP-FIRES 

veloped  with  deep  fidelity  and  subtle  beauty,  is 
the  growth  of  this  quiet,  simple,  lonely  man  in  fel 
lowship  with  nature  and  a  few  great  books.  He 
dies  silent  and  alone,  never  having  learned  to  speak 
out  to  the  world,  or  even  to  his  neighbors,  the  wis 
dom  which  he  has  garnered.  But  some  brief  daily 
record  of  his  experiences,  his  thoughts,  the  light  of 
life  that  has  come  to  him,  he  has  written  down  and 
leaves  behind  him.  Then  comes  a  young  man  of 
another  type,  Ralph  Parkman,  scholar,  traveller, 
and  author,  to  live  in  the  old  farmhouse.  He  finds 
the  forgotten  papers,  and  their  sincerity  and  beauty 
take  hold  of  him.  He  gives  them  the  form  and 
finish  which  they  need,  and  sends  them  out  to  the 
world. 

"It  was  a  little  book  which  finally  went  forth 
from  the  old  house,  but  it  was  very  deep  and  beau 
tiful;  like  a  quiet  mountain  pool,  it  was  far  from 
the  dust  and  tumult  of  the  highways,  and  there 
were  images  of  stars  in  it.  With  the  generosity  of 
a  fine  spirit  the  younger  man  interpreted  the  life 
of  the  older  man  through  the  rich  atmosphere  of 
his  own  temperament,  but  there  was  nothing  in 
the  beautiful  flowering  and  fruitage  which  the  world 
received  from  his  hand  which  was  not  potentially 


INTERPRETER'S    HOUSE 

in  the  heart  and  mind  of  John  Foster.  The  silent 
man  had  come  to  his  own;  for  God  had  given  him 
a  voice.  After  the  long  silence  of  a  lifetime  he  spoke 
in  tones  which  vibrated  and  penetrated,  not  like 
great  bells  swung  in  unison  in  some  high  tower,  but 
like  dear  familiar  bells  set  in  old  sacred  places, 
whose  sweet  notes  are  half-audible  music  and  half- 
inaudible  faith  and  prayer  and  worship." 

With  these  words  of  his  own  I  leave  this  brief, 
imperfect  tribute  to  Hamilton  Mabie  as  man  and 
author.  The  value  of  his  work  is  still  living  in  the 
hearts  of  his  hearers  and  readers  whom  it  has  en 
lightened  and  encouraged.  It  is  worthy  to  be 
treasured.  To  me  the  memory  of  his  friendship 
means  more  than  words  can  tell. 


299 


XX 

THE    HEALING    GIFT* 

TO  divide  and  distinguish  a  man  from  the  pro 
fession  in  which  he  is  engaged, — to  make  the 
measure  of  his  success  depend  merely  on  his  tech 
nical  proficiency  and  reckon  his  fame  only  by  the 
discoveries  and  inventions  which  he  has  made, — • 
seems  to  me  foolish.  There  may  be  some  profes 
sions  in  which  this  is  possible;  for  example,  en 
gineering,  where  one  has  to  deal  chiefly  with  the 
tenacity  of  certain  minerals;  or  astronomy,  where 
one  observes  the  motions  and  calculates  the  con 
stitution  of  distant  stars;  or  chemistry,  in  which  the 
supposed  elements  of  imagined  matter  are  tested 
by  experiment  and  recombined  by  hypothesis.  But 
in  the  more  personal  professions,  such  as  teaching 
and  medicine,  where  the  unexplained  mystery  of 
our  human  nature  is  part  of  the  material  to  be  dealt 
with,  no  professor  can  be  truly  excellent  or  mem 
orable  unless  he  has  within  him  the  qualities  which 

*Read  at  Johns  Hopkins  University,  Baltimore,  March  22, 
1920. 

300 


THE    HEALING    GIFT 

belong  to  the  make-up  of  a  really  great  man.  Such 
a  man  was  Sir  William  Osier,  world-renowned  phy 
sician. 

Of  his  achievements  in  medicine  and  surgery, 
Doctor  Welch  and  other  honored  colleagues  have 
written  and  spoken  with  authority  which  is  indis 
putable.  I  speak  only  of  the  personality  in  the  pro 
fession,  the  man  William  Osier,  who  was  a  famous 
doctor,  and  had  the  healing  gift. 

It  was  in  Baltimore  that  I  first  met  him,  when 
he  was  Professor  of  Medicine  at  Johns  Hopkins 
University.  He  had  behind  his  name  a  score  of 
degrees  and  decorations  from  various  universities 
all  over  the  world, — honors  fairly  won  by  his  work. 
But  this  was  not  the  main  thing  about  the  man. 
He  bore  his  honors,  to  use  the  American  phrase, 
"not  so  that  you  would  notice  it."  He  was  like  the 
friend  whom  Tennyson  describes  in  In  Memoriam: 

"wearing  all  that  weight 
Of  learning  lightly  like  a  flower." 

He  was  the  simplest,  most  modest,  and  most  charm 
ing  of  the  companions  whom  I  met  at  the  hospitable 
dinner-tables  of  Baltimore. 

Do  you  remember  his  topaz  eyes,  never  inquisi- 
301 


CAMP-FIRES 

tive  but  always  searching  and  comprehending;  his 
mouth  with  no  set  smile  fixed  on  it,  but  always 
quick  to  respond  in  sympathy;  the  tranquil, 
friendly,  understanding  expression  of  his  beautiful, 
dark,  oval  face  ? 

I  was  never  fortunate  enough  to  be  his  patient, 
but  I  could  have  trusted  him  to  "the  crack  o' 
doom."  I  should  have  felt  that  he  would  do  for 
me  all  that  man  can  do. 

Two  friends  of  mine  I  ventured  to  commend  to 
his  care  in  England.  One  was  a  poor  governess. 
The  other  was  an  English  official  of  high  rank.  To 
both  of  them  he  gave  an  equal  care  and  interest. 
Both  of  them  are  living  now,  but,  alas,  the  friend 
who  helped  them  through  their  hard  time  is  gone. 

The  next  time  that  I  saw  Doctor  Osier  intimately 
was  in  Paris,  in  the  winter  of  1908-1909.  As  al 
ways,  the  meeting  with  him  was  delightful.  But 
far  more  illuminative  and  instructive  were  the  re 
ports  that  came  from  my  son,  who  was  then  a 
scholar  at  Magdalen  College  in  Oxford.  He  wrote 
me  that  Sir  William  and  Lady  Osier  were  like  father 
and  mother  to  the  American  students  there. 

At  an  evening  party,  Doctor  Osier  would  put  his 
hand  on  the  shoulder  of  a  shy  boy  and  say:  "You 

302 


THE    HEALING    GIFT 

don't  care  for  dancing.  Come  into  the  library  with 
me."  And  then  he  would  show  the  boy  wonderful 
treasures  among  the  old  books. 

The  last  thing  that  Doctor  Osier  gave  me  was 
his  monograph  on  the  bookworm, — anobium  pani- 
ceum — against  which  he  had  a  justifiable  human 
hatred,  but  which,  none  the  less,  he  was  careful  to 
study  scientifically  and  to  depict  accurately  in  a. 
fine  plate  of  which  he  was  proud.  His  attitude 
toward  this  noxious  beast  was  very  much  like  that 
which  he  held  toward  the  Prussian  Kultury  and 
other  deadly  microbes. 

Looking  through  his  writings  I  find  a  thousand 
things  which  interest  me.  His  most  characteristic 
volume  Mquanimitas  recommends  that  steady  tran 
quillity  of  demeanor  which  is  essential  to  the  prac 
tical  work  of  a  physician;  but  underneath  that 
counsel  I  find  the  distinctly  Christian  words  of 
patience,  charity,  and  hopefulness.  I  should  like  to 
add  to  the  title  of  the  book,  "Magnanimitas." 

In  an  address  which  he  delivered  to  the  medical 
students  at  Toronto,  he  said  the  "Master  Word 
of  Medicine"  is  Work.  From  this  he  went  on  to 
teach  the  three  great  lessons  of  life.  "First,  learn 
to  consume  your  own  smoke.  Second,  we  are  not 
303 


CAMP-FIRES 

here  to  get  all  we  can  for  ourselves,  but  to  make 
the  lives  of  others  happier.  (This  he  supports  by 
the  authority  of  Christ.)  Third,  the  law  of  the 
higher  life  is  only  fulfilled  by  love,  i.  e.,  charity." 

His  writings  and  addresses  are  saturated  with  the 
Bible.  But  he  quotes  also  from  other  sources. 

In  one  brief  address,  called  Man's  Redemption 
of  Man,  made  to  the  students  of  Edinburgh  in 
1910,  I  have  noted  the  following  quotations  and 
references:  Isaiah,  Christ,  Confucius,  Cardinal 
Newman,  Euripides,  Edwin  Markham,  Deuter 
onomy,  John  Bunyan,  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  Sir 
Henry  Maine,  Plato,  Sir  Gilbert  Murray,  Robert 
Browning,  Pythagoras,  Hippocrates,  Galen,  Coper 
nicus,  Charles  Darwin,  Aristotle,  Galileo,  Milton, 
Stevenson,  Rudyard  Kipling,  Weir  Mitchell,  Poe, 
Prodicus,  and  Shelley, — with  whose  verse  the  ad 
dress  closes.  Quotation  on  this  scale  would  swamp 
an  ordinary  man.  But  Osier  was  not  an  ordinary 
man.  He  was  a  true  scholar,  who  read  much  and 
assimilated  all  that  he  read. 

The  breadth  of  his  knowledge  was  an  inspiration 

to  his  practice  as  a  physician.     It  was  not  only 

medicine  that  he  understood,  but  life.     He  gave 

his  patients  confidence  and  serenity,  and  thereby 

304 


THE    HEALING    GIFT 

helped  them  to  get  the  benefit  of  such  other  medi 
cines  as  he  prescribed. 

In  nothing  was  he  an  extremist:  certainly  not  a 
pessimist;  hardly  an  optimist,  because  he  knew  too 
much;  distinctly  a  meliorist,  because  he  believed 
that  the  advance  of  medical  science  would  bring 
great  good  to  mankind.  Yet  I  am  sure  he  felt  that 
life  meant  more  than  mere  living  on  earth.  This, 
I  think,  is  the  conclusion  of  his  lectures  on  Science 
and  Immortality  delivered  at  Harvard  University 
in  1904. 

The  last  time  that  I  saw  him,  gracious  and  vital 
as  ever,  was  in  Oxford  in  the  spring  of  1917,  when 
America  had  just  awakened  after  long  slumber, 
and  taken  her  right  place  in  the  World  War.  Os 
ier's  only  child,  Revere,  was  on  the  front-line,  fight 
ing  for  justice  and  freedom.  That  was  where  his 
father  and  mother  wanted  him  to  be.  Anxiety  for 
their  boy,  so  young,  so  bright,  so  rare  and  delicate 
in  promise,  was  in  their  hearts  day  and  night.  Yet 
it  only  made  them  kinder,  more  thoughtful  and 
generous  in  ministering  to  others. 

I  had  just  come  out  of  hospital  in  London  after 
slow  recovery  from  a  slight  injury  received  in  the 
trenches  at  Verdun.  Doctor  Osier  had  known  of 
305 


CAMP-FIRES 

it  and  had  sent  me  wise  counsel  and  help.  Now 
he  took  me  with  him  through  the  wonderful  war- 
hospitals  of  Oxford,  knowing  that  it  would  humble 
and  strengthen  my  heart  to  see  the  men  who  were 
bearing  and  suffering  a  thousandfold  more  than  I, 
for  the  good  cause.  As  we  passed  through  the  long 
wards  of  the  Schools  Building,  and  among  the  tents 
where  the  outdoor  patients  were  sheltered  in  the 
lovely  New  College  Gardens,  faces  brightened,  eyes 
lit  up  with  affection  and  hope  in  the  presence  of 
the  beloved  physician.  There  was  something  heal 
ing,  calming,  stimulating  in  the  soul  of  the  man, 
shining  through  his  outward  form.  He  pretended 
nothing.  He  knew  all  that  there  was  to  be  known. 
He  never  faltered  nor  flinched  from  the  facts.  His 
keen  and  evident  sensibility  never  interfered  with 
his  steadiness  of  hand  or  coolness  of  nerve.  His 
very  look  seemed  to  say,  "Be  brave,  be  patient, 
remember  the  other  fellows,  do  your  best  to  get 
well  and  I  will  help  you;  for  the  rest  we  must  all 
put  our  trust  in  God." 

Osier's  sense  of  humor  was  native,  unconquer 
able,  and  always  full  of  human  sympathy.     He  up 
held  and  illustrated  the  ancient  Hippocratic  stand 
ards  in  the  practice   of   medicine:    "learning,   sa- 
306 


THE    HEALING    GIFT 

gacity,  humanity,  probity."  No  one  could  have 
laughed  more  heartily  than  he  at  the  refutation 
which  his  own  life  gave  to  his  jocose  confession, 
in  his  farewell  address  at  Johns  Hopkins  in  1905, 
of  two  "harmless  obsessions,"  namely,  that  men 
above  forty  are  comparatively  useless,  and  men 
above  sixty  are  cumberers  of  the  ground.  This  was 
a  jest  so  fine  that  the  so-called  "reading-public" 
in  America  could  not  possibly  understand  it.  Nor 
could  they  be  expected  to  note  that  the  suggestion 
in  regard  to  the  use  of  chloroform  to  get  rid  of  people 
over  sixty  was  a  quotation  from  Anthony  Trollope, 
to  which  Osier  distinctly  declined  to  give  his  ap 
proval,  because  as  he  said,  "  my  own  time  is  getting 
so  short." 

Yet,  after  all,  it  was  not  so  very  short:  fourteen 
years  were  left  to  him,  and  he  filled  them  to  the 
brim  with  noble  work  and  happy  play.  Never  was 
he  more  alive,  more  useful,  more  helpful  and  heal 
ing  to  his  fellow  men  than  in  those  years, 

"Serene  and  bright, 
And  lovely  as  a  Lapland  night,'* 

which  he  passed  at  Oxford.     The  final  test  that 

came  to  him,  the  news  that  his  boy  had  made  the 

307 


CAMP-FIRES 

supreme  sacrifice  on  the  field  of  honor  in  Flanders, 
he  bore  with  that  equanimity  which  is  the  crown 
of  a  sensitive  and  unselfish  soul, — a  soul  that  lives 
in  God  for  man,  and  therefore  can  never  be  lost  in 
sorrow  nor  die  in  death. 

After  his  own  custom,  I  have  been  considering 
what  wise  and  ancient  words  may  best  express  his 
personality. 

Most  of  all  he  would  have  liked,  I  am  sure,  the 
words  of  Christ  which  he  quoted  to  the  students 
of  Yale  University  in  1913:  "Ye  must  be  born  of 
the  Spirit."  That  spiritual  birth  was  the  secret 
of  the  extraordinary  power  with  which  Osier  used 
his  rare  intellectual  gifts  and  scientific  attainments. 

But  next  to  that  quotation  from  his  favorite 
book,  the  Bible,  I  think  he  would  have  liked  these 
words  written  by  Tacitus  about  his  father-in-law, 
the  noble  Roman  Agricola. 

"The  end  of  his  life  brought  mourning  to  us, 
melancholy  to  his  friends,  solicitude  even  to  the  by 
stander  and  those  who  knew  him  not.  The  great 
public  itself,  and  this  busy,  preoccupied  city,  talked 
of  him  in  public  gatherings  and  private  circles.  No 
one,  hearing  of  his  death,  was  happy  or  soon  for 
getful.  .  .  .  Should  posterity  desire  to  know  what 
308 


THE    HEALING    GIFT 

he  looked  like,  he  was  well-proportioned  rather 
than  imposing;  there  was  no  impatience  in  his  face; 
its  dominant  expression  was  benign.  You  could 
easily  believe  him  good,  and  gladly  recognize  him 
great.  Though  snatched  away  in  his  prime,  he 
lived  to  a  ripe  old  age,  measured  by  renown.  He 
fulfilled  the  true  blessings  of  life  which  lie  in  char 
acter.  ...  If  there  be  a  habitation  for  the  spirits 
of  the  just;  if,  as  wise  men  are  happy  to  believe, 
the  soul  that  is  great  perishes  not  with  the  body, 
may  you  rest  in  peace,  and  summon  us  from  weak 
repinings  and  womanish  tears  to  the  contemplation 
of  those  virtues  which  it  were  impiety  to  lament  or 
mourn.  Let  reverence,  and  unending  thankfulness, 
and  faithful  imitation,  if  our  strength  permit,  be 
our  tribute  to  your  memory.  This  is  true  honor: 
this  is  the  piety  of  every  kindred  soul." 


309 


XXI 

A  TRAVELLER  FROM  ALTRURIA* 

THE  Dean  of  American  Letters  passed  away  in 
the  spring  of  1920,  gently  and  serenely,  as  he  was 
wont  to  go  in  life's  affairs.  Having  lived  with  a 
fine  faithfulness  and  joy  in  labor  for  more  than  four 
score  years,  having  finished  the  last  page  of  his 
many-leaved  manuscript,  William  Dean  Howells 
laid  down  his  pen,  and  set  out  cheerfully  on  his 
long  voyage  to  the  Undiscovered  Country, — shall 
we  not  call  it  his  Golden  Wedding  Journey? 

It  was  sixty  years  ago  that  he  made  his  debut 
as  an  author  in  Poems  of  Two  Friends,  written 
in  comradeship  with  John  James  Piatt.  Then  he 
wrote  a  campaign  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  and 
afterward  illuminated  the  ledger  of  his  youthful 
consulship  in  Venice  with  two  lovely  series  of 
sketches:  Venetian  Life  and  Italian  Journeys.  In 
1871  he  published  the  first  of  his  charming,  inti 
mate,  fancifully  realistic  pieces  of  fiction,  Their 
Wedding  Journey.  After  that  not  a  year  passed 

*Read  before  the  American  Academy  of  Arts  and  Letters, 
New  York,  March  1,  1921. 

310 


A  TRAVELLER  FROM  ALTRURIA 

without  some  fruit  from  his  fertile  mind:  verse, 
short  story,  long  story,  novel,  essay,  criticism, 
sketch  of  travel,  or  commentary  on  life. 

He  was  always  a  painstaking  writer;  but  it  was 
never  a  pain  for  him  to  write.  He  liked  it;  and  the 
sense  of  his  own  pleasure  in  finding  the  right  words 
to  describe  the  people  and  things  that  he  had  in 
his  mind's  eye  was,  (to  me  at  least,)  a  distinct  ad 
dition  to  the  pleasure  of  reading  his  work.  It  was 
perfectly  natural  for  him  to  be  an  artist  in  litera 
ture.  His  feeling  of  security  and  comfort  in  writing 
clear  and  beautiful  English  was  at  the  farthest  re 
move  from  vanity  or  priggishness.  It  was  simply 
the  result  of  keeping  good  company  among  books 
and  men.  It  would  have  been  as  unnatural  for 
him  to  write  loud,  ungainly  things,  as  for  Raphael 
to  paint  a  Cubist  picture. 

There  was  something  singularly  humane  and 
sympathetic,  intelligent  and  teachable  about  his 
spirit.  Though  of  a  very  quiet  manner,  he  was 
capable,  even  after  middle  age,  of  strong  enthu 
siasms, — witness  his  adoration  of  Tolstoy. 

His  own  careful  and  almost  meticulous  taste  in 
words  did  not  prevent  him  from  knowing  and  un 
derstanding  the  colloquial  speech  of  the  day, — 
311 


CAMP-FIRES 

that  broad  river  of  so-called  "slang**  which  carries 
on  its  flood  much  perishable  rubbish,  but  also  many 
treasures  to  enrich  the  language  with  new  phrases 
and  figures.  No  doubt  the  New  England  School 
of  writers  and  the  stringent  intellectual  climate  of 
Boston  influenced  Howells  strongly,  especially  at 
the  beginning  of  his  career.  But  no  less  clearly 
do  we  recognize  in  his  work  the  genial  influence  of 
the  Knickerbocker  School,  begun  by  Washington 
Irving  and  carried  on  by  George  William  Curtis, 
Charles  Dudley  Warner,  Donald  Mitchell,  Frank 
Stockton,  Henry  Bunner,  Hopkinson  Smith,  Bran- 
der  Matthews,  and  others.  In  fact  there  was  in 
Howells  a  quality  of  appreciation  and  responsive 
ness  which  made  him  open  to  influences  of  various 
kinds,  as  his  book  My  Literary  Passions  clearly 
shows. 

As  a  critic,  it  seems  to  me,  the  lasting  value  of 
his  work  is  discounted  a  little  by  this  susceptibility. 
His  criticism  is  sincere,  vivacious,  often  charming 
by  its  very  personalism.  But  it  is  more  a  statement 
of  successive  likings,  than  a  dispassionate  and 
reasoned  judgment.  He  has  no  real  standard  of 
excellence;  or  rather,  he  has  too  many  standards 
of  predilection.  Yet  it  was  this  very  quality  that 
312 


A  TRAVELLER  FROM  ALTRURIA 

made  him  so  generous  and  encouraging  as  a  friend 
to  the  younger  writers  of  his  day,  though  so  far 
from  infallible  as  a  prophet  regarding  them. 

In  verse  he  wrote  comparatively  little,  but  in 
that  little  he  condensed  the  very  essence  of  his 
deepest  thoughts  and  emotions.  Here  we  feel  that 
wistful  sadness  which  the  true  humorist  so  often 
carries  in  his  heart:  here  we  can  trace  the  secret 
furrows  which  personal  grief,  (especially  the  loss 
of  his  beloved  daughter,)  ploughed  in  his  soul :  here 
also  we  find  the  humble,  hardy  blooms  of  spiritual 
faith  and  ethical  conviction,  surviving  all  the  as 
saults  of  sorrow  and  doubt.  He  did  not  lose  the 
will  to  believe,  though  sometimes  he  had  to  faH 
back  on  sheer  moral  loyalty  to  defend  it.  He  was 
an  inveterate  questioner,  an  habitual  sceptic  in  the 
old  Greek  sense  of  the  word,  which  means  an  in 
quirer,  a  searcher.  But  underneath  all  he  was  a 
mystic,  unwilling  to  surrender  realities  invisible  and 
eternal,  or  to 

"  Deny  the  things  past  finding  out." 

Three  veins,  it  seems  to  me,  are  clearly  marked 
in    his    novels   and    stories.      The   first   vein   is   a 
delicate  and   delightful  humor,   altogether  native, 
313 


CAMP-FIRES 

quaint,  and  savory, — the  humor  which  brings  the 
smile  before  the  laugh.  This  I  find  at  its  best  in 
"A  Chance  Acquaintance,"  "A  Fearful  Respon 
sibility,"  and  that  absurdly  delightful  love-story 
"The  Lady  of  the  Aroostook." 

The  second  vein  is  a  sincere  and  reasonable  real 
ism,  an  endeavor  to  be  true  to  the  facts  of  life,  ma 
terial  and  spiritual.  This  is  quite  a  different  thing 
from  the  gross  "naturalism,"  as  they  call  it,  of 
those  novelists  who  are  imperfectly  house-broken. 
The  stories  of  Howells  are  clean,  not  by  force  of 
prudery,  but  by  virtue  of  decency.  I  do  not  know 
where  to  find  more  closely  studied,  accurately 
drawn,  well-composed  pictures,  large  and  small,  of 
real  life  in  certain  parts  of  America  at  the  close  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  than  in  such  novels  as  A 
Modern  Instance,  Dr.  Breen's  Practice,  and  The 
Rise  of  Silas  Lapham.  The  last  in  particular,  with 
all  its  predominant  Bostonian  atmosphere,  is  lifted 
by  its  moral  force  into  a  broader  region.  It  seems 
to  me  Howells's  best  book.  I  think  it  comes  nearer 
than  any  other  yet  written  to  that  much-called-for 
but  perhaps  impossible  achievement,  "the  American 
Novel." 

The  third  vein  in  Howells's  work  is  the  social  pas- 
314 


A  TRAVELLER  FROM  ALTRURIA 

sion,  the  sense  6f  something  shamefully  wrong  in 
modern  civilization,  the  intense  desire  for  a  new 
and  better  life.  This,  according  to  his  own  state 
ment,  is  directly  traceable  to  what  he  calls  the 
noblest  of  his  enthusiasms,  his  "devotion  for  the 
writings  of  Lyof  Tolstoy.'*  This  came  to  him,  he 
tells  us,  just  after  he  had  "turned  the  corner  of  his 
fiftieth  year,*'— that  is  to  say  either  in  1886  or  1887, 
according  as  you  take  the  "corner"  as  the  first  or 
the  last  of  his  year.  In  1888  he  published  Annie 
Kilburn,  the  earliest  of  his  books  in  which  this 
Tolstoyan  influence  is  unmistakable, — a  novel  which 
had  such  a  place  in  his  affection  that  he  sent  it  to 
me  with  his  own  portrait,  as  if  to  say,  "Here  I  am, 
and  thus  I  believe." 

In  many  volumes  which  followed, — A  Hazard  of 
New  Fortunes,  A  Traveller  from  Altruria,  The 
World  of  Chance,  New  Leaf  Mills,  and  so  on, — 
we  find  the  same  vein,  worked  with  varying  power, 
but  always,  if  I  mistake  not,  with  unvarying  sin 
cerity  and  loyalty  to  his  master's  cause.  There 
was,  of  course,  a  large  elemental  force  in  the 
Russian  master  that  the  disciple  did  not  possess. 
But  on  the  other  hand,  the  American  disciple  had 
a  keenness  of  perception,  a  balance  of  judgment,  a 
315 


CAMP-FIRES 

shrewd  common  sense  that  the  master  had  not. 
You  might  resume  the  difference  roughly  by  saying 
that  Howells  was  a  grown-up  man  of  power,  while 
Tolstoy  was  an  infant  of  genius. 

I  used  to  have  the  impression  that  Howells's  ad 
miration  of  Tolstoy  was  unlimited  and  indiscrimi 
nate.  I  now  confess  that  this  was  a  mistake.  It 
may  have  been  extreme,  but  it  was  not  without 
discrimination.  Howells  admits  that  his  master's 
doctrine  of  absolute  individualism  and  passive  re 
sistance,  like  his  theory  in  regard  to  Money,  "though 
it  may  be  logical,  is  not  reasonable."  He  dis 
counts  the  ineffectiveness  of  Tolstoy's  allegories  and 
didactic  tales.  He  faults  The  Kreutzer  Sonata  for 
applying  to  marriage  in  general  the  lesson  of  one 
evil  marriage.  He  concedes  that  in  certain  things 
the  master's  life  was  fallible  and  seems  a  failure. 
And  he  concludes  with  a  very  noble  sentence: 
"There  was  but  one  life  ever  lived  upon  the  earth 
which  was  without  failure,  and  that  was  Christ's, 
whose  erring  and  stumbling  follower  Tolstoy  is." 

As  I  look  back  among  my  personal  memories  of 
Howells,  which  run  through  more  than  thirty  years, 
there  comes  to  me  somehow  a  gleam  of  rare  bright 
ness  from  one  unforgettable  season. 
316 


A  TRAVELLER  FROM  ALTRURIA 

We  had  passed  the  summer  of  1898  as  neighbors 
at  York  Harbor  on  the  Maine  coast.  There  were 
others  of  the  guild  of  letters  in  the  little  colony, — 
Mabie  and  Warner  and  Thomas  Nelson  Page  and 
Kate  Douglas  Wiggin.  We  met  often,  and  of  course, 
there  was  an  "authors'  reading"  for  some  good 
local  cause  to  which  we  all  contributed  of  "such  as 
we  had."  Yet  during  the  summer  each  of  us  was 
more  or  less  busy  with  his  own  task  of  writing, — 
Howells  more. 

But  in  September  came  a  golden  leisure  time, 
when  the  air  was  opal  with  the  light  sea  haze,  and 
hints  of  autumnal  color  gleamed  secretly  through 
the  fading  green  of  grove  and  thicket,  and  the 
marsh-grasses  turned  russet  brown  and  the  bracken 
dim  gold,  and  the  asters  put  on  royal  purple,  and 
the  long  filmy  gossamers  went  floating  with  the 
slow  breeze  or  lay  on  the  emerald  aftermath  glis 
tening  with  tiny  drops  like  threaded  diamonds. 
Then  Howells  walked  with  me  in  the  high  pastures, 
or  under  the  pointed  firs,  or  in  the  old  fields  where 
mushrooms  grew  for  our  gathering.  The  sunset 
came  early  but  faded  slowly.  There  was  a  smell 
of  ripening  apples  and  wild  grapes.  The  blue  smoke 
from  farmhouse  chimneys  went  straight  up  into 
317 


CAMP-FIRES 

the  sky.    We  could  feel  that  frost  was  coming, — 
not  far  away. 

Howells  talked  with  me  of  nature  and  art,  of 
books  and  people,  of  love  and  sorrow,  of  life  and 
death  and  life  beyond.  Speaking  of  his  own  poetry 
he  called  himself  "a  sadder  singer,  full  of  doubt 
and  misgiving."  Nothing  on  earth  could  be  to 
him  what  it  used  to  be  before  his  daughter  died. 
Yet  he  would  not  give  up  his  work,  nor  go  mourn 
ing  silent  all  his  days.  The  best  that  he  would  have 
men  say  of  his  writing  was  that  it  was  true  to  what 
he  thought  and  felt  when  he  wrote  it.  Whatever 
there  was  of  misery  and  trouble  and  evil  in  the 
world,  still  courage  and  patience,  labor  and  fellow 
ship  were  good, — good  in  themselves  and  good  in 
their  results.  Justice  was  what  we  ought  to  work 
for,  but  meantime  most  of  us  must  confess  that 
we  needed  charity, — authors  not  exempt, — nor 
preachers !  A  man  ought  to  think  more  of  what  he 
belongs  to,  than  of  what  belongs  to  him.  When 
we  see  something  queer  in  others  it  should  be  a 
kind  of  a  looking-glass.  The  best  hope  we  can  have 
is  that  God  smiles  at  us  as  we  do  at  our  small  chil 
dren.  The  things  we  toil  for  on  earth  are  not  vain, 
— they  are  real  enough,  some  of  them,  but  all  tran- 
318 


A  TRAVELLER  FROM  ALTRURIA 

sient, — and  some  day,  perhaps,  we  shall  look  back 
at  them  as  not  very  different  from  these  bundles 
of  mushrooms  we  have  been  gathering.  "I  see," 
he  added,  with  a  whimsical  smile,  "my  bundle  is  a 
little  larger  than  yours.  But  that  is  only  because 
my  handkerchief  is  bigger.  Besides,  we  are  going 
to  divide  them  equally  when  we  get  home." 

I  still  see  him  with  that  wistful  smile  on  his  lips 
and  around  the  corners  of  his  eyes,  and  hear  his 
soft,  slightly  hesitant  voice,  as  he  says  good-bye 
at  the  door  of  his  cottage. 


319 


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